And In My Soul Am Free
by X-parrot
Summary: Post-season 11 speculation, gen - Captured, tried and sentenced by the British Men of Letters, believing his brother is gone, Sam struggles to hold onto hope and his humanity.
1. Chapter 1

_Post-season 11 finale fic, started shortly after the ep aired, so not based on any season 12 spoilers, just our own speculation. After working on it for the last month, it's not quite done, but I'm starting to post now before too many spoilers joss it before it even begins._

 _Much as I love Sam, I've always been a Dean girl. But I'm writing this for my own little sister, who loves Sam best, and has been in an agony of anticipation over what might be happening to him. So while Dean's presence is a constant, his actual appearance won't be for a while._

* * *

The worst part isn't the trial. As big a mockery of justice as it is. Sam knows the wigs and robes are British custom, though it doesn't stop them from looking ridiculous to his American eyes. But the porcelain masks over their faces are from an entirely different tradition. And holding the proceedings in Middle English is not part of any legal practice Sam knows of.

Sam's reading knowledge of the language is good enough to get through Chaucer, but when it's spoken loudly and at intense length he can't catch one word in three. It effectively prevents him from mounting any defense, or even understanding exactly what the charges against him are. Ending the world, he guesses, between what he can make out and what he was told back at the bunker. That the world is clearly still here, he'd think would be evidence in his favor, but by the angry arguments that keep breaking out, it's not a convincing case.

He's not even sure what they're arguing about. As far as he can tell he doesn't have an attorney on his side. The prosecution is fighting with itself. Possibly over whether to actually crucify him or just burn him at the stake. Or whatever the Men of Letters do to, what was it, _jumped-up hunters, doing more harm than good._

And yeah, that sucks; it's humiliating, to sit and listen to these old men (and women, by the voices; the British Letters are egalitarian, at least) in their ludicrous costumes rant in a tongue he barely understands, about things they understand even less.

 _(And where were you, when Lucifer was walking the Earth, when the Leviathans were released, when the angels fell, when the Darkness was freed? If you didn't approve of how we were cleaning up this shit, why didn't you grab a goddamn shovel yourselves?)_

At first Sam tried to speak in any pauses, but every time he was talked over, shouted down. He doesn't know if it was because he wasn't using old enough English, or maybe they wouldn't listen regardless. By now his tongue is too dry to yell. The man sitting in the raised pulpit, the judge he assumes, has yet to so much as turn his half-white, half-black mask Sam's way. And Sam can't stand up to draw attention, not shackled as he is to the wooden bench.

The chains aren't the worst part, though after the past—five hours? Six?—the weight of the iron and the manacles around his wrists have started to bruise. His right shoulder is throbbing; the bullet wound was mostly healed (already; and wouldn't that particular magic poultice have come in handy on so many hunts) but its ache now is an increasing distraction.

He's barely trying to follow the arguments anymore, instead looking at the 'courtroom'—stone walls, not mortared pieces but solid: a cavern or a catacomb, he thinks, by the lack of windows. No hint or clue to where he is, whether he was actually transported overseas, or did this assemblage come Stateside. Wherever this is, every inch of the rough-hewn rock is etched with symbols, from tiny runes no larger than newspaper copy, to the giant Enochian sigil carved in the wall behind the judge, extending from the floor to higher than Sam could reach.

'Justice' is one translation for that symbol. Also 'Wisdom,' 'Command,' and 'Vengeance.' Sam wonders which meaning applies to the courtroom. Or maybe it changes depending on the case.

If he weren't in pain and chained up and also on trial, possibly for his life, he would want to study these walls. The characters over the doorways, for instance, he assumes are for protection; he recognizes some from the bunker, but it's beyond anything he's read up on. The men and women with him now could probably teach him all about them. If they weren't too busy passing judgment on his ignorance.

Such pompous sanctimony is painful in itself. All the more so because Sam understands it, knows all too well the intoxication of self-righteousness. It's not even a drug; it's a poison, crippling your reason, your empathy. He doubts he could get through to these people even if they were willing to listen to his modern tongue. But that's not the worst part, either.

The worst part is looking at these be-robed, be-wigged figures in their painted masks, and hearing in his head Dean's snide comments about Sam's clown phobia. The worst part is thinking how Dean would've thrown a fit hours ago, to hell with who was listening, hollered and rattled his chains until the judge was forced to bang his gavel or rock or whatever he has and cry order.

The worst part is how, wherever this trumped-up court is, whatever is going to happen, Sam would almost rather be here than at the bunker, with nothing left to do but arrange his brother's funeral.

x x x

When the trial ends for the day (night? He's yet to see daylight since he woke up here) the guards bring Sam back to his cell. They don't unlatch the manacles; he shuffles along dragging the chains with him, like Marley's ghost or that spirit in the cannery in Bruceport, back in '07.

The cell is less dungeon, more monastery. There's a foam pad spread over the stone block against the left wall, with a blanket if no pillow. There's a sink with clean running water and a light switch. There's even a small stack of paperback novels, mostly sixty-year-old mysteries and pulp SF.

Like the courtroom, there are no windows, and the solid stone walls are carved with symbols as well, if fewer of them, most running along the top of the walls just below the ceiling. Out of reach of most prisoners. Sam can brush his fingers along them, but it's a strain, fighting against the weight of the chains.

He wonders if all their guests get shackles, or if he should feel honored. The Letters are obviously not taking any chances. When they bring him meals, they order him to stand back against the far wall before they push open the door. It's heavy oak, bound in steel bands, and thick enough that when he bangs his manacle cuffs against it there's only a muffled thud, no movement.

Most of the food they bring is from McDonald's. Wendy's a couple of times. That might be a clue as to his location, except Sam can't remember if England had Wendy's or not. The burgers don't taste any different to him.

Dean would say that at least they're feeding them right, and he might even mean it. Only Dean doesn't say anything, of course, because he's gone.

Sam tried asking for a salad the second day. Since then there's always a cup of greens included with the burgers and fries, but they're from the same places, crappy iceberg lettuce and one mushy tomato wedge. He makes himself eat it all anyways. To keep his strength up, until he gets a chance to make a move.

Usually it's the guards who bring the meals, adding an extra element of incongruity, with their precise black suits and ties contrasting against both the rough stone walls and the bags of cheap fast food. It'd look silly if they weren't such big guys, broad-shouldered, almost as tall as Sam. Hired bodyguards, maybe. Or else recruited from a top-secret government agency—Sam's pretty sure there's a joke there, about the Men in Black and the Men of Letters, but he can't find the words Dean would.

But when the door creaks open tonight, it's not a wannabe Secret Service agent, but the woman who confronted him back at the Bunker. Who shot him, and banished Cas.

"You," Sam says.

She's holding a white burger bag instead of a gun this time, but she's got the same look, skittish but resolved. "Stay back," she says crisply.

"Not moving," Sam tells her, keeping his shoulders against the wall. But the chains shift, and at that jangling the woman's head jerks up, shoulders stiffening.

"This cell is warded," she states. "If you make a move against me, you'll suffer for it."

 _So I could try, and see if your definition of suffering measures up to Lucifer's—_ but Sam stays put. "It was Toni, wasn't it? Toni Bedell?"

"Bevell," the woman says.

Sam nods. "And you're a Man of Letters—Woman of Letters? Like me."

"Hardly," she says. "I'm no hunter."

"Hunter, yeah; but we—but I'm also a legacy."

"Through your grandfather, Henry Winchester. A distaff branch of one of the lesser families. Still, it would've been enough for you to be accepted into lower-tier training, had the American chapter still been active. But it wasn't, and you weren't trained at all."

She still doesn't sound quite as disdainful as the masked guys in the courtroom. Or maybe that's just because Sam can understand all her words. "So that's why you're here? To mock my credentials?"

"No." She tilts up her chin to meet his eyes. "I came to see how you were doing."

"How I'm doing?" Sam almost laughs. He lifts his cuffed hands to rattle the chains. "I was taken from my home and chained in a cell, who knows where, to be put on trial for my—I don't actually know for what, my life? Soul? Whatever—because I didn't save the world exactly how some armchair quarterbacks overseas thought I should save the world, and my—" _—my brother is—_ but he doesn't say it; refuses to give her that.

Her eyes break from his gaze, dart down to his bandaged injury. "How is your shoulder?"

It's aching still, with the weight of the manacles pulling his arms down. But he won't give her that satisfaction, either. "It's okay."

"Good."

Her lips are pressed together tightly, but she sounds like she genuinely means it. "Your first time?" Sam asks her.

"First time?"

"Shooting someone."

Her eyes narrow; then she turns on her heel. As she exits she drops the fast food bag on the floor.

"Wait—Toni, wait," Sam says, as she starts to push the door shut.

She pauses, looks back into the cell.

Sam makes his best go at a smile, keeps his voice calm and his shoulders to the wall. "Back at the bunker," he says. "That Enochian sigil you used—I haven't seen one like it before."

"No," the woman says, "you wouldn't have done," and she swings the door back in place with a crashing thud.

x x x

Though Sam racks his memory, he can't clearly remember the banishing sigil. He only caught a glimpse of it, and that memory is shaded by grief and then the shock of a bullet in his shoulder. On top of the emotional blow of being attacked in their home—his home—

Or the Men of Letters', of which they were only a small part of a larger legacy. Maybe too small to matter.

It wasn't the standard angel banishing symbol they usually used, him and Dean and Castiel himself. From the visuals, the primary elements were the same, but try as he might Sam can't recall what the major sign within the circle was, whether it's a figure he knows. If it didn't just send Cas flying up to Heaven or to the ends of the Earth; if it cast him further, or hurt him...

But Cas will be fine—Cas is always fine.

(If he isn't, there's no one to bring him back anymore.)

After Sam eats, sitting on the floor on a rucked-up blanket, leaning against the stone slab of the berth, he tries praying again. Even if Cas is somewhere in range, in a condition he can hear, Sam doubts the prayer will get through; enough of the symbols carved into the top of the walls are Enochian that he suspects magic shielding is at play. But just in case.

"Cas," he says, subvocalizing, lips moving but not even breathing the words. Not when he doesn't know who might be listening. They knew something about Cas already, obviously, but he won't give away more willingly. "Can you hear me? I'm—wherever the hell I am. But I'm still here. I'm fine. They've got me on trial for...I don't know. Doesn't matter. I'm still looking for a way out—nothing yet, but I'll keep trying.

"I hope you're okay, man. Wherever you ended up. Don't do anything dumb, all right? If you're hurt, then you've got to get better before you try to look for me. Be careful—be careful with yourself, okay, Cas? Because, you know, there's no one watching out for us now. So we've got to watch out for ourselves. And once I get out of here, I'll come looking for you. So just hang in there."

He leans his head back against the foam pad, sinking in until he feels the hard stone underneath. Shuts his eyes and swallows. "Cas, I hadn't gotten a chance—I forgot to say, sorry. Sorry about your dad. Even if you weren't close, if you...I'm sorry."

It's been years since Cas lost his wings, but Sam still has to fight the urge not to listen for the rustle of feathers, to look around expecting to see his friend. He keeps his eyes closed, and the cell remains silent.

He'd thought the silence was easier at first. At least it wasn't like last time, the year after Dick Roman, when Sam would be fine, until a car would drive by with the windows down and the radio blaring, or he'd walk into a grocery store with the speakers tuned to classic rock—always some stupid song or another that he didn't even like, not really, but he knew every word to anyways, and he'd find himself hunched over the sidewalk or in front of the shopping carts, eyes stinging and fighting to take a breath that wasn't a sob.

There's no radio to ambush him here. There's no rattling fan; even the light overhead is inaudible, no electric hum—an LED bulb, or maybe it's magic.

Last time he'd thought—he'd hoped, he'd prayed, that Dean had gone to Heaven. That wherever Dean had ended up, he was at peace, the peace he'd craved, that he deserved. That Sam had no right to drag him from.

(Or maybe that had just been his excuse. A deterrent, to stop him from doing something even worse than summoning demons and drinking their blood.)

This time—he hadn't asked; none of them had. Whatever would happen to all those hundred thousand souls—and the soul of the body that carried them—none of them wanted to know. No cost is too high, when literally everything is at stake. So why bother looking at the price tag at all?

And Sam had been willing to pay, same as his brother. Would be willing again, of course he would. Billions of lives on the line—more, if Earth's not the only world out there. It wasn't even a choice, when everything would end either way.

Sam is grateful it worked. Glad that the universe is still here. He is, even imprisoned as he is in this cramped, dark corner of it.

Once he would have prayed. Asked for strength, and maybe what he found was only the strength that was always in him, but it was the asking that brought it out.

But Cas probably can't even hear him through the cell's warding. And there's no one else now to listen.

Sam lies on the padded stone and all he can hear are his own breaths, in and out, in and out. This is what it means to be glad: to keep breathing.

x x x

The trial lasts six days. Or six sessions, at least; with no daylight and no clocks Sam isn't entirely sure that he's sleeping on a twenty-four hour cycle anymore.

The seventh time he's brought to the courtroom, still bound and chained, the prosecution has been unmasked. They're still wearing the robes and wigs, and amid that show their lined and weathered faces barely look more human. They watch with bright, impassive eyes as Sam is led, shuffling, chains dragging, to the bench.

The judge is standing in his pulpit. He still has his mask on, bisected black and white halves. He waits for Sam to reach the bench, then starts to speak for the first time. His voice is thin and reedy, quavering with age.

Unlike the rest of the trial, the verdict is delivered in Latin, but there's a lot of idioms and the pronunciation is far from the standards Sam's familiar with. He gets enough to understand that he's been found guilty.

( _Big surprise there_ , Dean doesn't say.)

What his sentence is, Sam is less clear on. Not the death penalty, he doesn't think; at least he doesn't hear any declensions of _mors_ in the judge's speech.

When he glances at the prosecution, the reactions are mixed. The one on the left is frowning slightly; the one on the right continues to hold a stare as fixedly expressionless as her former mask.

The man in the middle is smiling, as slight as his colleague's frown, but the dry corners of his mouth are definitely curling up as he meets Sam's eyes. Not happy, nor encouraging. His fixed stare is nothing but pleased.

That bodes well. Sam looks away.

The judge's frail voice finally trails off, like a whistling teakettle taken off the heat. He reaches up, pulls away the mask to reveal a face as wizened and seamed as a walnut. Holding the mask in both hands, he brings it down on the edge of the pulpit. The porcelain shatters, black and white pieces chiming on the stone floor.

At that signal, the suited guards step forward again, unhook Sam's chains from the bench and lead him once more out of the courtroom. Though the stone corridors are mostly featureless, by now Sam can recognize the well-traveled route back to his cell. "I take it I'm not getting off with time served?" he says.

The guards don't answer, no more than they ever do.

x x x

For possibly the first time in his life, Sam is wishing that he'd watched more TV. Maybe if he'd paid more attention to MacGuyver when he was a kid, he could figure out a way to turn one of the paperbacks into a lockpick or a knife. Or an explosive, at least. From what he remembers when Dean used to watch, MacGuyver could make anything blow up.

As it is, he's lying on the berth, paging through an Agatha Christie mystery he may or may not have read before, when the cell door opens, admitting Toni Bevell. No bag of burgers this time; no gun, either. Instead she holds a folding chair.

This she sets on the floor in front of the door, seats herself and takes out a leather-bound notebook and a fountain pen.

Sam sits up with a rattling of chains to watch her, wariness giving way to confusion as she opens the notebook. "Umm...?"

Bevell clears her throat, meets his eyes. "I realize this may be a touch…awkward. But I've been given first crack at it, and I'm not going to pass it up. So, shall we? Or will you refuse to cooperate?"

"Cooperate with...?"

Her lips press together. "Don't get me wrong; we will obtain what we seek, one way or another. But if you are willing...it will be easier, if you are." Her eyes drop to the notebook, and her voice drops, too. "I told them that I thought you would be reasonable."

"Reasonable about—what are you talking about?" Sam looks around the cell, almost expecting to see a candid camera to make sense of this. "Do you want me to testify now? I thought the trial was over."

"Obviously it is," Bevell says. "Hence me being here."

Sam looks back at her, a head shorter even sitting, with the notebook and pen in hand. " _You're_ my punishment?" and Dean really should be the one here, to make some crass, sexist remark about how she needs more leather and higher heels. Maybe a whip.

The Woman of Letters looks unimpressed even without the wisecrack. "You were there for the sentencing, weren't you? I realize the prior proceedings were a trifle esoteric; but I assumed you know basic Latin. You are the more educated one. Or did you merely memorize exorcisms phonetically?"

 _Like a trained parrot_ , she doesn't actually say, but Sam can hear it in her voice. He's already bristling at the 'more educated one,' but he closes one hand into a fist, squeezes his anger between his clenched fingers. It won't help him here. "Yeah, so I'm not used to using Latin conversationally. Classes at Stanford are in English."

Bevell sighs though her nose. "Yet you'd claim yourself of the Letters. Oh, very well. After reviewing the evidence and your history, Lord Scantlebury—"

Sam can't help himself. " _Scantlebury_? Seriously?"

"—Lord Scantlebury," Bevell raises her voice over his, "decided that it would be unreasonable to pass judgment on you as a true Man of Letters, since you hadn't been initiated into even an outer circle, and therefore couldn't be expected to comprehend the laws and codes you broke. Instead you were judged as what you are: a hunter, who got illicit access—"

"—Illicit? Our grandfather gave us the key!"

"—to some of our most profound mysteries and artifacts, and inevitably misused them in ill-conceived and catastrophically dangerous ways."

"Saving peoples' lives!"

"Or ending them," Bevell says. "We've seen the records from the bunker since your tenure there. The Styne family members; the Prophet Kevin Tran..."

Sam's not ready for that reminder; it hits him like a punch in the gut, leaves him too breathless to ask about the nature of those records. Is the whole bunker wired? Magic CCTV? How much of their private lives have these bastards spied on? Digging up all their failings and transgressions, laying them bare—for a moment he's almost grateful he couldn't understand the trial after all.

"So what was my sentence?" Sam asks finally. "For taking up my grandfather's legacy without your permission?"

Bevell lifts her chin. For the first time since entering his cell she looks uneasy. Like she did at the bunker, aiming her pistol—her confidence faltering, and she trying to shore it up with bravado. Before, she pulled the trigger. Now she says, " _Abutor_."

Sam frowns. He'd heard the word in the judge's speech but hadn't had the context to make sense of it. On its own it's just as inexplicable. "'Misuse'? How we misused the bunker...?"

"'To make full use of,'" Bevell corrects. "Not your crime; the ruling. Very traditional," though the way she says that makes the custom sound more archaic than time-honored.

"So you're going to punish me by, what, putting me to work?" and for an instant Sam pictures himself cast in the opening of _Conan the Barbarian_ , pushing some giant grindstone.

"Not punishment," Bevell says. "It's not intended as a deterrent, but a solution. Hunters are prone to abusing our knowledge, but we take the opportunity to learn what we can from your blunders."

Sam looks down at the notebook in her hands. "So what you want from me—"

"—is information," Bevell says. "The complete accounting of what you've done, with the devices of Letters, and before you found the bunker. We know the consequences of your actions, but not the details. Not how you managed all that we know you're responsible for."

Sam looks at her, at her slender fingers clutching the enameled pen. Looks down at his own hands, his clenched fist resting on his thigh, the iron manacles digging into the flesh through his jeans. He thinks of reciting all of their missteps, everything they did wrong in all their years hunting.

His own catalog of sins he could list off in his sleep. They hardly even sting. Those from before the Cage, he's paid his dues for; those after he's already talked about. Less comfortable in chains, without a beer in hand; but he could do it.

But to talk to this woman, with her fountain pen and her condescending eyes, to tell her those things that Dean did, sometimes too hastily, sometimes regretted—but always what he thought he had to do, to save Sam, to save everyone. Because Dean might have been a hunter or he might have been a Men of Letters legacy; but he was always, first of everything, a hero.

"No," Sam says.

"No?" Bevell repeats, brow furrowed.

"I'm not cooperating." Sam lays back down on the padded berth, crosses his arms as best he can with the chains and shuts his eyes. "Pick another solution; I'm not telling any of you anything."

* * *

 _to be continued..._

 _More to come, if anyone's interested!_


	2. Chapter 2

Toni Bevell asks her questions for half an hour. Probing, involved questions. A lot of her information is a matter of public record, like their arrests, the number of times they've legally been declared dead. The Men of Letters do their research, though; she's soon asking about more esoteric details. Things like Abaddon killing Henry, Dean's time in Purgatory.

How many demons did the London chapterhouse interrogate? Would've been nice of Crowley to mention there was someone asking around about them. Sam wonders if Bevell was there for any of those interviews. Asking a demon questions with her notebook and pen in hand.

Sam doesn't ask her. He doesn't say anything to her, just keeps his eyes shut, pretending to sleep. Finally she sighs, picks up her notebook and pen and leaves. The folding chair remains.

The next day a new man enters the cell. Later middle-aged by his iron-gray hair, wearing a tweed suit and speaking with the same accent as Bevell, but he smiles more. He looks and sounds like a professor—a Hollywood version of a professor, the stereotypical British intellectual.

His questions are more targeted, focusing on ghosts. How many instances of ectoplasm has Sam seen; has he ever personally experienced ghost possession; what is the maximum distance from location of death that Sam has observed a spirit manifest?

Again, Sam crosses his arms and refuses to answer. Though when he's asked what's the most ghosts he's witnessed at one time, he shudders, thinking of Waverly Hills. The last hunt that they—that he was on.

The professor gives up, sooner than his younger colleague. The next one after that is an elderly woman, stooped and slow. One of the suited guards opens the heavy door for her, closes it behind her.

Sam recognizes her lined face—one of the prosecutors from his trial. Out of the wig and robe she looks like someone's grandmother, forgoing the chair to lean on a cane, a simple and modern aluminum piece.

She asks him about spellcraft, summoning rituals. Sam doesn't answer, but he's starting to feel slightly silly about it. He was expecting thumb screws and electric leads. This courteous curiosity is such a far cry from what he was braced for that he's not sure what to do with it. Is it possible that he's not the one who's been misjudged; that it's actually he who is in the wrong?

—Well, he knows that much already. God is dead, and Dean...

But maybe these Men of Letters know better after all. Maybe what Sam mistook for self-righteousness is actually clean virtue, and he's just lived in the dirt and the dark too long to recognize it. And if it's too late for him to be one of them, he might at least further their cause.

The grandmother shakes her head at his silence. As she turns to leave, she stumbles, the cane almost slipping from her knotted fingers.

Sam automatically jumps to his feet to help her, momentarily forgetting the chains. They clank, slowing him, and the old woman's head jerks up. Her eyes are wide, with fear he thinks, and he opens his mouth to reassure her.

The woman speaks first, a single harsh syllable as her fingers flick out, casting something at him, a fine, pale powder that glitters slightly.

Then Sam is struck motionless—not by shock but an external force, invisible but stronger than the iron binding him. It's like being encased in stone; he can breathe, can feel his pulse fluttering under his skin; but every voluntary muscle in him is frozen stiff.

"That's better," the old woman says—the old woman of Letters, and her questions about magic were evidently more than scholarly interest. She hobbles forward, peers up at him. Grabs his chin in one hand and pulls his face down to hers. Sam keeps his balance but still can't move, other than as her hand guides him.

This close, her eyes are rheumy, filmed with moisture and the sclera yellowing. But sharp, as she peers into his. "Back in my day, you hunters had manners," she says. "Showed us respect. This sort of nonsense wouldn't be necessary."

She lowers her hand to his throat, not squeezing, just clasping loosely. Her other hand she puts to his mouth. The fingertips brushing his lips are cool, dry and musty as the pages of an old tome. He can smell the traces of the powder on them, taste the acidic edge of ash.

She speaks again, another short word. Sam doesn't recognize the language, doesn't need to, to know it's another spell. There's a burning against his throat, as if her fingers are a brand, and he feels the magic like a bubble, like poison welling up inside him, filling his belly, his lungs.

"Now," the old woman of Letters says, releasing him and stepping back, "tell me what you know of magic."

His stomach roils as his gut clenches; his mouth opens, but what spills out isn't bile but words. A torrent of babble that he's helpless to stop, can barely comprehend for all he's the one talking, "—the Crossroads pact, old hoodoo, graveyard dirt, black cat bones, was the first summoning I learned—my dad taught it to us, just to recognize it, so we'd know what we were dealing with, and he probably wouldn't have taught us if he'd ever thought that we would use it—all the times we've used it—or taught others to, when it wouldn't work for me anymore, when no demon was willing to deal, but I needed—"

On it goes, and on; he heaves up secrets like vomit, unable to move anything but his tongue, as the old woman listens, leaning on her cane, head cocked in contemplative attention. For an hour or more she makes him talk; then she releases him with a snap of her fingers, a dry, frail sound.

Sam stumbles back, sags onto the berth when his knees catch the stone edge. He's out of breath, parched; his head is throbbing and his throat hurts from fighting and failing to stop himself from speaking. He can't even remember most of what he said; the words had come too quickly, too disjointed, pouring out before he could fully form a thought.

By the way the old woman is watching him, she remembers more. Though maybe not everything she wanted to know, by her narrowed eyes. Or maybe it's what she does know now that disappoints her. "A pity about your upbringing," she says, head tilted up at him—even sitting, he's above the eye level of her stooped figure. "Given how much you know already, even without the proper training...you might have proved an interesting student."

Sam only glares at her, the chains yanking at his arms, crossed over his stomach. His mouth is clamped tightly shut and he doesn't dare open it.

The old woman shakes her head in disappointment. She raps lightly on the door, and the guards outside open it to let her out, leaving Sam alone in a silence he can't trust himself to break.

x x x

The grandmother of Letters isn't the only one who knows those spells; or maybe she didn't lift the magic entirely. It might have been a curse, something embedded in his blood, inscribed on his flesh. There's no mirror or window here for Sam to see his throat, but when he touches the skin he can feel a faint roughness, scabs or scarring.

He doesn't know what the mark is, can't make out its shape. But the next people to come to his cell with questions now can drag answers from him with a muttered word and a wave of the hand.

He can't stop himself. Even when he's not paralyzed by the old woman's magic, it doesn't help to bite his tongue or clap his hands over his mouth; if he tries, the marks on his neck burn and his stomach cramps with nausea, until involuntary reflex forces him to gag and cough up words, faster than he can think them. It's horrifying, humiliating, that he can't even know what he's going to say, that the spell bypasses not only conscious control but thought itself.

On the other hand, at least he's still aware to hear what he's saying. Once he adjusts to the shock enough to focus, he's able to listen to himself, to the stream of jabber flooding from his mouth, almost detached, as if he's not the one speaking at all.

There are other mercies. For all he's only talking, the spell is exhausting. Maybe the magic draws on his life force to operate, or maybe it's just the fatigue of fighting it. Whatever it is, the Men of Letters seem aware of his limitations. Their interrogations don't last more than an hour or two, and they give him time between to rest, to eat and sleep.

To think, too. After a few sessions, Sam realizes that the babble that pours out of him isn't as entirely thoughtless as it feels. His audience can direct it with their questions, evoke the answers they seek.

It doesn't take Sam long to figure out that with his mind still cognizant, he can ask his own questions in his head. If he can't make himself stop talking, he can at least divert the stream-of-consciousness rambling down certain channels. Some of those are cut deep enough that everything will flow there, if he lets it. He practices in the breaks between sessions.

When the next visitor comes, Sam is ready. This guy is another one from the trial, the wrinkled old man who smiled when the sentence was passed. He looks as pleased now as he seats himself on the folding chair, notebook in hand. He pronounces the word to engage the spell, then asks in his cultured, dry accent, "What was the name of the first demon you exorcised?"

Sam fights back the nausea long enough to draw a deep breath, marshalling his thoughts. This is easy anyway; it's only a short jump. "I don't know its name, we never learned it, before we banished it—sent it out of the sky and back to Hell, back to prison—probably one of the lower circles, but not the lowest, because that's where the Cage is, where Lucifer was—"

"I'm not here for that old legend," the old man snaps, waving his hand in dismissal. "You had dealings with the demon Azazel—tell me what powers you observed in him?"

Another breath. "Azazel was Yellow-Eyes, was Lucifer's servant, his powers were all for Lucifer, to raise him—but he didn't know Lucifer, not like I know him—the petty, needy, egotistical monster, the Lucifer who reads stupid fairy tales and throws firecrackers—he sang 'Stairway to Heaven' seventy-three times; I counted them—would have thought he'd stop at sixty-sixty, but—"

"Azazel," the old man repeats, "talk about Azazel!" and Sam would smile if he had that much control over his mouth. Instead he just keeps talking.

The old man of Letters gives up after a couple hours, leaving Sam in his cell, wrung out but triumphant. He flops back on the mattress padding, the chain clanking against the stone. After everything he's said, he expected that Lucifer would be all that's on his mind; but his last thought before he lets himself slip off to sleep is Dean, smiling grim but proud— _Way to screw them over, Sammy..._

x x x

The questioning sessions get easier, as he gets more practice. Sometimes he jabbers about Lucifer—the Lucifer that was only a figment of his imagination, not anything useful. Later he goes off on different tangents, about movies or health food. One tirade comes pouring out of his mouth about GPSs, how they're more convenient but don't give the physical satisfaction of tracing a route with your finger from beginning to end.

(That rant raises a sudden, too-sharp memory—nothing significant or traumatic, yet it's as vivid as the cell around him: sitting in the passenger seat, tucking the penlight under his chin as he refolds the map, raising his voice over the rattle of rain against the windows and the sweep of the wipers, "Yeah, take the next exit onto Route 50..." But the lump in his throat doesn't interrupt his bespelled babbling.)

Some of the sessions are short, if the interrogator loses patience quickly; others of the Letters are more determined. It doesn't do them any good; the more exhausted Sam gets, the more random and meaningless his rambling becomes. There's almost something relaxing about it, meditative.

Sam doesn't bother trying to keep track of how many times he's questioned, but he's seen at least half a dozen Men of Letters before Toni Bevell returns to his cell. She sits down with her notebook and pen, lifts her chin. "Well, then, Sam, what can you tell me about the Mark of Cain?"

And that's all she says—no chanted words, and her hands stay folded around her notebook. Sam sits, waiting, every muscle in his body tensed with the anticipation of the spell, but not trapped by its power.

Finally he asks, "So, what, are you too junior to know the magic word?"

Bevell stiffens, gaze shooting to his throat and then jerking back up to his eyes. "I told them the spell wasn't necessary," she says curtly. "You'd talk to us willingly, given the chance."

"You think?"

"You're intelligent enough to realize that ultimately, we're all on the same side."

"Oh yeah." Sam lifts his manacled hands, chains clanking. "I really feel the trust here."

"This isn't about trust," Bevell says. "It's about knowledge, understanding. You know what we deal in; you've witnessed firsthand the threats that are posed against all of humanity. Such as the Mark—you of anyone in the world can appreciate its danger."

Sam tightens his fists around the chain, until the iron links bite into his palms.

"The purpose of the Letters is to study and learn and master these threats," Bevell continues. "To protect the world against them."

The cold metal grounds Sam, allows him to keep his voice steady. "As far as you're concerned, I'm one of those threats. So why would you think I'd help you?"

"Because I have studied you," Bevell says. "You and your brother, I learned enough to know that you weren't intentionally trying to wreak havoc. You've acted out of ignorance and fear, not malice; you're not evil, however dire the consequences of your actions have been. You've suffered as much as anyone, and I believe that if offered the opportunity, you'd want to make things right." She cocks her head at him. "Or am I wrong?"

Sam would like to answer her with sarcasm, sneer at her optimism; but he can't meet her bright eyes. He lets his head drop, shakes it once in denial.

"This is your chance to do that, Sam," Bevell says. "To help us—help repair some of the damage you've caused. For instance, if you could tell me who bears the Mark of Cain now? We know it was removed from your brother; since it cannot be destroyed, who did you pass it onto?"

Sam keeps his head down, letting the fall of hair hide his face. He doesn't know himself if it's tears or laughter he's concealing, can't feel what shape his lips are stretched into, over his clenched teeth. "Lady, you'd make a more convincing good cop if you had any idea what the hell you were talking about."

"So tell me," Bevell says. Sam hears the chair creak as she leans forward. "Help me understand."

"But you can't," Sam says. "You're already so sure of what you know—what you think you know—that you wouldn't listen, even if I did talk. If you really knew me, you'd know I wouldn't pass a curse like the Mark onto anyone."

"Even to save your brother?" Bevell says. Her accent lends itself to arch skepticism. "That's one thing I doubt you would dispute, how far you'll go for one another." She pauses. "Or how far you would have gone, rather."

Sam yanks up his head, and sees the woman twitch, sharply enough to slide the chair back an inch. She's not smiling, though; her jaw is set with resolution. Trying to get a reaction out of him, yes; but not to be cruel or mocking.

"If that's your real question, why don't you just ask it?" Sam growls. "I told you already—Dean is dead. Dead and gone—I'm the only one left for you to punish. Or are you going to try to explain to me again how this," and he rattles his chains, "isn't punishment?"

Bevell at least has enough decency to look away at that, avoiding his eyes. "We'd prefer it wasn't necessary," she says.

"Do you mean the chains? This cell? The curse on me?"

"All of it," Bevell says. "You are a legacy, after all, in spite of your upbringing."

Sam barks an imitation of a laugh. "Which didn't stop you from pulling the trigger on me."

"Can you blame me?" Bevell meets his eyes now, her gaze direct and steady. "I did do my research. I'd banished your angel friend, and you admitted your brother had died—and recently, from our last confirmed sighting. Can you honestly tell me that I was in no danger from you?"

"You broke into my home—"

"—The rightful property of the Men of Letters, hence the key in my possession—"

"—You attacked my friend and were holding a gun on me, throwing accusations—what did you expect me to do? Talk it out over a cup of tea?"

"I expected no less or more than what I found," Bevell says, but her stiff shoulders fall, slumping. "That I may have hoped it could be different...but I should've known better."

"And after all that, you still thought I'd talk to any of you." Sam snorts. "I've been called an optimist, but at least I'm not that oblivious."

Bevell exhales. "I suppose not," she says. She closes the notebook, tucks the pen away as she stands.

"Giving up already?" Sam asks, even as he tenses, readying himself as she raises her hand. But she doesn't cast the spell, just raps on the heavy door.

As it creaks open, she looks back at Sam. Clears her throat and says, "There wasn't a good opportunity to say it before, but, I am sorry about Dean. I would have liked to meet him."

"Yeah, well, he wouldn't have given a damn about meeting you," Sam says. Not that he would've been disappointed, either—Dean hadn't had any naive fancies about what the Men of Letters were really like. Dean probably would have expected this.

Dean probably would've been ready for Toni Bevell, would've noticed some sign, before it was too late, before Cas was banished and he had a gun trained on him. Dean wouldn't be in this cell now.

If there'd been any other way—if anyone but Dean could've carried that damn bomb; if Sam had just figured out how to get to Amara himself...

But it's too late for that. Regret won't get him anywhere.

(Not that there's anywhere he has to go. Anywhere he wants to go. If he weren't in this cell, then where would he be? The bunker's not his home—not his at all. And too big anyway, for one person; even when the Men of Letters used it as a glorified warehouse, it always had a pair of caretakers.)

But Cas—Cas is still out there, he has to be. And Jody and Claire and Alex, who don't even know what happened to Dean, and deserve to. Sam won't tell these Men of Letters anything, but Jody he wants to tell. Jody would understand what Dean did, would appreciate it. And there's Garth. And Donna—she wouldn't want to know, but she should.

(Does Donna believe in God? Does Jody still?)

Sam still doesn't dare speak anything aloud, even when alone in the cell. Doesn't want those names to become familiar enough on his tongue that they accidentally spill out when he's under the spell. But he recites them in his head, as he lies in the dark. Reminds himself that the world hasn't ended. Not yet. Not ever.

x x x

Toni Bevell doesn't come back to Sam's cell. He's not lacking for visitors, though. Every few hours there's another man or woman of Letters. The curse is quick on all of their lips, not that it does them any good. Sam continues to refine his technique, ensuring they get nothing out of him but meaningless gibberish and mounting frustration.

Some of them give up, stop coming. Others are more persistent, especially the elderly demonology expert. He doesn't smile like he did at the trial, spends the interrogation sessions with his lined face puckered into a scowl. But he keeps coming, keeps his notebook and pen in hand as Sam rants, though there's little he hears worth noting.

In his fourth session—or maybe the fifth? Sam's losing track—the old man finally snaps, curses Sam out the old-fashioned, non-magical way as he chucks his notebook at Sam's head. Sam doesn't duck in time, the spiral-bound pressboard glancing off his cheek. The old man's arm is too weak for it to hurt, though he counts himself lucky the pen missed his eye.

"Don't move," the old man tells him, warningly. The guards are right outside, and the man of Letters might have other defenses. Sam obediently stays in place, seated on the stone berth, just watching as the old man slowly and creakily lowers himself to his knees to retrieve the notebook. Then he storms out.

Even after the door is shut and locked and he's left in solitude, Sam remains still for a time. It's partly caution, partly the dread of having a fragile hope ended too quickly.

Finally he leans over, reaches to the stone floor. Sifts through the links of jangling chains until he finds it—the old man's pen, with its sharp metal nib.

He can't bend his wrists at the necessary angle to reach the manacle's lock. But by wedging the pen between the mattress pad and stone, pressed under his knee, he can get sufficient leverage. With the awkward position it takes him some time, his arms growing stiff with the weight of the chains. But when he feels the lock catch, hears the click of its release, he comes close to smiling.

It's only the first step, obviously. The door is padlocked from the outside, no way to reach it. But Sam has had plenty of time to consider his options. He snaps the cuffs back in place for his next interrogation, hides the pen. Too risky to take on the guards plus one of the Letters, however venerable.

But the next time the guards come to bring him a meal, he's ready. They've gotten complacent in the past weeks, accustomed to their shackled prisoner offering no resistance. When they knock on the door, they don't care that Sam only retreats to the middle of the room, not back against the wall. They don't notice the blood on his throat, or that the chains aren't around his wrists but held in his hands.

There are two men, in the usual black suits. Sam targets the one opening the door—a stocky guy, but a little shorter than Dean. The combined mass of Sam and the shackles bowls him over, knocking his head against the door. It swings wider open as the man slumps to the floor, dazed.

The other guy is left holding the bag—literally, and in the half-second it takes for him to register what's happening, drop the burgers and go for his sidearm, Sam has swung around the longest length of chain. It catches the man across the wrists, doesn't actually lasso him but he shouts in pain, stumbling back.

Sam drops the chains and charges him before he can recover. It takes two punches to lay the guy out on the stone floor. Sam doesn't take the time to shake out his bruised fist, going for the bulge under the lines of the man's suit. Not a gun but a taser, it turns out, but Sam will take what he can get. He relieves the other guard of his stun gun as well, then shoves them both into the cell and leaves them groaning behind the heavy door as he heads off down the hall.

He hasn't seen much of this place, other than when he was hauled to the courtroom and back again, and the stone-walled corridors mostly look alike. They always brought him from the right, so he goes left. He keeps the taser ready and stops frequently, listens for the echo of footsteps and heads in the opposite direction when he hears any.

Eventually he reaches a stairwell, concrete steps with steel railings, more warehouse than dungeon. It reminds him of the bunker. He's debating whether to risk climbing up when there's a buzzing sound. The lights dim as a low siren starts wailing.

Too much to hope it's a fire alarm. At a guess his guards have been found. Sam swears under his breath, takes the stairs three at a time. The metal door at the top is locked, but once he exhales and steadies his hands, it only takes seconds to pick.

He pushes through the door and finds himself in an office. Not a doctor's or a company executive's, but a private study, dark wood paneling, shelves of bound books, padded leather armchairs, broad oak desk without even a computer, just a blotter. The kind of room Sam once long ago might've dreamed about having, but he's got no time for envy now. Behind the desk are bay windows, the glass a black mirror—must be nighttime. All the better for an escape.

He vaults the desk, reaches for the window latch—

"About time you got here, boy," says a creaky voice behind him.

Sam turns back, to see the farther chair swivel around. The old demonology expert is ensconced in the brown leather. "I was starting to think I'd underestimated you," he tells Sam, smirking.

Sam stares at him, almost motionless—except for his other hand, lowered behind the desk, holding the taser out of sight. If he brings it up fast enough...

Though this man is old enough that the shock to his heart could be fatal. And magic user or not, he's still human. Still a Man of Letters.

Sam raises the taser into view, pointed at him. "Stay there," he orders, "don't do anything, and I won't hurt you."

"No, it's not likely you will," the man says, and snaps his fingers as he spits out the spell's trigger phrase.

Sam's all but memorized those syllables by now. But the rise of his gorge is only a Pavlovian response; no words come with it. Sam grits his teeth around a smile. "Sorry," he says, and tips back his chin to show his throat.

Without a mirror to check his work, he did more damage than was probably necessary, scratched a little deeper than he meant to. Still, the grazes were shallow enough that they've scabbed over by now—but far from healed, cutting through the curse's symbol, breaking its power.

The old man has risen from the armchair, frowning at Sam, more irritated than afraid. "Don't move," Sam tells him, brandishing the taser.

Ignoring the threat, the old man raises his hand, turned up, folded in a fist around a small satchel. Sam grimaces and pulls the trigger on the stungun, aiming low, avoiding his heart.

Nothing happens.

The old man throws out his hand, fingers spread to cast the faintly sparkling ash as he barks the magic command. Before Sam can make it to the window, he feels the paralysis settle over him with the dust, his spine going rigid, finger locked around the inert taser.

"Vesuvius ash," the old man says. "A clever bit of sympathetic magic. You should count yourself lucky we figured out how to neutralize the suffocation side effect." He hobbles over to Sam, reaches up to lightly slap his still cheek. "Don't feel too badly," he tells Sam, as he bends over to pry the taser out of his motionless fingers. "This device isn't broken; it was never charged.

"Now, this one, on the other hand," and the old man draws a compact Beretta pistol, "is fully loaded."

Sam's spellbound muscles can't tense, but his breath quickens. The old man shakes his head. "Don't worry; I wouldn't dream of shooting you. What a waste! This is merely to substantiate the scenario."

He wraps Sam's hand around the pistol like he's arranging a mannequin, sets his finger on the trigger and adjusts his arm.

"There," the old man says. "That'll do nicely."

Sam can't disagree. With his mouth paralyzed with the rest of him, he can't utter a word in protest, only watch, mute and motionless, as the old man shuffles back to the chair. When he's seated, the gun is aimed squarely at his head.

Sam struggles until the sweat of his effort drips down his forehead and stings in his eyes, but he can't budge his finger on the trigger.

The old man gives him a satisfied nod and leans forward to hit a button on the antique intercom on the desk. "Help!" he rasps into the grill, aged voice cracking, "He's in here!"

Footsteps pound, and the study doors are thrown open, admitting more suited guards. The old Man of Letters points a trembling finger at Sam, shrinking back into his chair, his jaw dropped in exaggerated, breathless terror.

The guards don't equivocate. Their tasers are already drawn; spotting the gun in Sam's hand, the man in the lead fires. The pulsing current seizes Sam's breath in his throat. As his vision darkens, he wonders if the spell's paralysis will keep him upright, or will he fall over?

He passes out before he learns, and the last thing he sees is the old man seated across the desk, crooked yellow teeth bared by his smile.

* * *

 _tbc..._

 _Thank you for the reviews, favorites, etc! It's so encouraging to know you're reading - makes it easier to face down a blank document, knowing somebody wants it filled. I hope you continue to enjoy the story (even if Sam does not...)_


	3. Chapter 3

Sam is lying in bed—not his bed in the bunker; this mattress is lumpier, and the sheets coarser. Someone grabs his shoulder, gives him a gentle shake. "Five minute warning, Sammy."

It's not Dean's voice—

(couldn't be Dean, when Dean is dead)

—but it's still familiar enough that Sam's eyes snap open. The motel room is dim, though pale light is seeping through the cracks around the window shade. Enough for Sam to make out the silhouette bent over him. "Dad?"

"Almost dawn, son," John Winchester says, giving Sam's shoulder a final pat before he stands. "You've got five minutes and then it's time to get up."

Sam doesn't remember being sick, but he must have been, to get this leniency. Half of him wants to take advantage, roll over and sleep the little more he can. But the other half is too curious. "Dad, what are you doing here?" He frowns. "Where is here?" It's too dark for him to identify the motel room, not that he likely could even if the shade was up. He's stayed in so many they all blend together.

"Thought you could use a break," his father says. "Just a short one. And I probably shouldn't be here, but..." He shrugs. "It's hard, letting go entirely. I kind of got used to watching you boys...watching out for you. More than I ever meant to."

His voice is soft, lighter than Sam's accustomed to. Sam rubs his eyes as he sits up, peering at the other man as he goes to the window. "Dad, what are you talking about?"

The light outside the window is growing, so that he can make out his father's smooth face, his slighter build. He's young, Sam's age or younger. "Rest while you can," he says. "You'll need it—you've got a busy day ahead of you. And after that." He looks toward the brightening window. "Just remember, it's darkest before dawn. —Well, not actually, but it's a good metaphor to hold onto. And you have to. To that, or anything else—as long as you do hold on."

"What do you mean?" Sam tries to get up to face his father, but something holds him down, keeps him from rising. His arms are stuck to the bed, as if his wrists are bound there. "What's going on, Dad?"

His young father just sighs. "Guess that's my cue," he says, and pulls back the curtain. Brilliant light floods over Sam, blindingly bright. It's harsh white, not the warmth of new sunlight.

Sam blinks his eyes open, squints up into the light, seeing the filament burning within the bulb hanging overhead.

He's not in the cell but in a white-walled room. It could pass for a hospital or a morgue, except for the sigils and symbols stenciled on the polished tile.

He's strapped down, wrists and ankles cuffed—not the cold, heavy weight of the manacles, but tighter leather belts. He's on a medical gurney, resting on thin padding over sheet metal. The aluminum frame rattles when he struggles.

"It's about time," rasps a voice over him. The wizened old Man of Letters is standing by the cot. His antiquated suit looks no less incongruous here than in the cell.

Sam's head is pounding and his tongue is dry, the sour cotton-mouth aftertaste of sedation. He licks his lips, croaks, "I'd have thought by the time you're this old, you would've learned some patience."

"To the contrary." The lined face splits in a malicious smile. "If you reach my age, my boy, you'll know better than to waste the time you've got left."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Be proud, Mr. Winchester." The old man's grin widens as he pats Sam's cheek, proprietarily. "Your display of violence proved what you really are. So now we're finally going to make proper use of you."

Sam is tempted to turn his head, bite those gnarled fingers. And just further the case against him. Instead he keeps his voice calm, says, "I take it you needed a guinea pig for your research. What is it—more spells? Deadly artifacts?" He looks around the room, at the cabinet of steel drawers, no doubt stocked with medical implements. "Or just vivisection?" Been there, done that. It's not bravado, just facts; this white chamber isn't the Cage, and this smirking old man isn't the Devil. The worst that can happen here is that they'll go too far and he'll die.

(The best that can happen here...but he can't think like that. Dean wouldn't want him to think like that.

Not that this matters anyway; here or there, Heaven or Hell or the Empty, he won't see Dean again.)

The old man is shaking his head. "I'm old enough not to waste opportunities, either. And you're a rare one, my boy. A very rare one indeed, if half of our research on you is true."

"I'd hope it is," Sam says. "Since research seems to be the only thing you guys are any good at."

"As opposed to the death and destruction you specialize in," returns the old man. "Well, it takes all kinds, I suppose. And your kind does have its uses."

"Been a while since you've gotten a hunter under your knife?"

"A hunter?" The old man laughs, a choking wheeze like a dying engine. "Hunters are a dime a dozen. You, though," and he tugs down the collar of Sam's shirt, runs cool, dry fingers over the restored anti-possession tattoo. "I never thought I'd get the chance to personally examine the demon-touched."

"If I'm the only demon possession victim you know of, then you're even worse at this than I thought," Sam says.

The old man's stare is as ruthlessly hungry as any demon's, though his eyes are bright, not black. "The possessed are one thing. But a chosen child, tainted from infancy—first fed by Azazel himself, no less, and however many demons since." He slaps Sam's chest, over his heart. "The things we could learn from you... You should be grateful. It's possible that in the final reckoning, you might save more than you've killed. Or your body will, at least—your blood, and the power in it."

The Man of Letters has none of his magic paralysis dust in hand, but Sam still feels frozen, breath stuck in his throat. He forces it out to say, "It won't work. Whatever you're hoping to study—I don't have any powers; there's no demon blood in me. Not for years."

The old man's smile doesn't falter. "Excellent," he says. "It's always best to start an experiment with a baseline..."

x x x

The Men of Letters take their research seriously. Before anything else is done, they make a thorough assessment of Sam's condition. Some measurements are performed by personnel in white coats and surgical masks—putting him under an X-ray machine, taping EEG leads to his head. Others involve battered old tomes and glowing crystals.

The old woman comes, removes the traces of her broken speaking curse with a hand to his throat. Her touch burns, but Sam feels the magic unwinding from his soul, sticky and bitter. It makes him cough, though the physical act does nothing to relieve the ache of it, the thickness in his lungs.

They keep him bound to the gurney throughout. Sam lies quiescent and cooperative, enduring their prodding and scanning and spells. In the minutes between the tests he pulls at the cuffs, not major, obvious motions, just twisting his wrists, working to loosen the straps.

He doesn't get much give. But enough to raise up his left hand, during an unobserved moment, and slam it down at the angle to pop his thumb out of joint. He bites his tongue, breathes hard through his nose as the initial pain subsides. And waits through the next two tests, until the others go off to file their latest results, leaving behind a single guy, not too tall, slouched shoulders under his white coat.

Sam holds still, feigns a doze until he feels the shadow of the man over him. Then he yanks his arm free of the cuff and delivers a left hook, square on the guy's nose. There's a crunch as blood blooms on the surgical mask, and the man keels over.

Sam gets off the other wrist cuff, is working on the ankle restraints when everything goes dark. It's so sudden that he thinks at first it's literally the power that was cut.

Except when the lights come back on, he's once more secured hand and foot to the gurney. His stomach has dropped, roiling with nausea, and he swallows hard, fighting to keep it down.

At the delicate throat-clearing beside him, he snaps open his eyes again. Toni Bevell is standing by the cot, looking down at him. She says, "I've been asked to let you know that this will go easier if you just realize you can't escape."

Sam lets his head fall back on the gurney. "And they think I'll listen to you?"

"Me, no; but reason, perhaps," Bevell says. "Those restraints are wired both magically and electrically. It won't cause you permanent damage, but resistance—"

"—Is futile. Right," Sam says. He pulls at his bound wrists, hearing the additional rattles—pairs of handcuffs are reinforcing the leather straps. "Seems like you trust your spells and tech as much as you trust me."

"None of these precautions would be necessary, had you not given into your baser instincts," Bevell says sharply. "Escape is one thing, but deliberately seeking out Aloysius, with clearly lethal intent..."

Sam exhales. "I take it Aloysius is the old man with the interest in demonology? I don't suppose it would mean anything to you if I said your friend set me up."

"Set up?" Bevell repeats. "You mean to say, a ninety-eight-year-old man dragged you from your cell up to his office and gave you a loaded gun?"

"Ninety-eight, really? And that's not quite what happened," Sam says. "But he gave me a way out of that cell. And he did give me that gun—after he locked me down with the spell. Where do you think it came from? The guards are armed with tasers."

Bevell gives him an odd look. Evaluating. "Some have sidearms."

"9mm Berettas?"

"Perhaps."

"Aloysius wanted me here," Sam says, rolling his head to indicate the white-walled room. "For his work. I don't think it was ever about justice or punishment for him. Just research."

Bevell doesn't say anything. Her contemplative expression remains fixed, though there's unease in how she shifts her weight from foot to foot. Or maybe she's just wearing uncomfortable shoes.

"Of course that's all any of you care about, right?" Sam asks. "Those studies you keep to."

"You really are just a hunter, aren't you," Bevell says. "Living for years in one of the greatest storehouses of mystical and paranormal knowledge in the world, and all it ever was to you was a place to stash your knives and guns."

It shouldn't hurt—this woman's misinformed opinions shouldn't mean anything to him. And yet Sam has to hold his breath to keep from shuddering. For a moment all he can see is the library's table lamps, the warm glow under the antique shades. A leather-bound volume open on the table in front of him, filling the air with the rich musty aroma of old pages. And Dean sitting across from him, boots propped on an extra chair as he leafs through another text— _"Check it out, Black Dog size classification—heh, that one's more like a Black Chihuahua—"_

Sam blinks back the memory and the stinging in his eyes, looks up at the woman over him. "I'd rather be a hunter than one of you. Some of the best people I've ever known were hunters—all of you just seem to be assholes. Hunters try to save people, not use them as research subjects."

"What do you think our research is for? The lore you hunters rely on—who gathers it, maintains the records through upheaval and disaster?"

"I know. And I thought that was worthwhile," Sam says. "When I met my grandfather, when I learned about all this, what you are, what you do—I thought the Men of Letters were something good, something important. I was...I wanted to be a part of it. But now that I've seen who you really are—"

"And what's that?" Bevell demands. "Those who know what's at stake? What dangers are out there? We are scholars first, Sam, but our learning makes us painfully aware of the realities of this world. If you thought we would be sheltered, because we prefer books to bullets and pens to swords—we know better than that."

"So the ends justify the means?" Sam tugs at the straps around his wrists. "Can't make an omelet without a little involuntary human experimentation?"

"You talk like you're an innocent in this. Like you weren't tried and convicted—"

"Right, because that kangaroo court was so fair and on the level—"

"So you're entirely blameless?" Bevell takes a step closer, standing over him, eyes narrowed, jaw set. "Lucifer, the Leviathans, the Darkness—their coming had nothing to do with you?"

Sam closes his hands into fists, closes his eyes. "No," he says. "I'm not saying that."

It's the most honestly he's ever answered her; the most he's confessed to. He can hear Bevell breathing, faint echoes off the white tile, harsh and too fast.

Though her voice, when she finally speaks again, is even. "You've done so much, caused so much destruction, and you thought you'd get away with it. You thought that bunker you broke into would protect you, but that's not what we built it for. And now you accuse us, try to make us out to be the enemy, because you can't accept the responsibility. You're more naive than my son, and he's not even eight."

Sam shouldn't care. But it's more than she's ever given him, too, and there's something in her voice he hasn't heard before. He opens his eyes. "You have a son?"

"I do," Bevell says. "I had a husband, too."

"'Had'?" Sam asks. Knowing he doesn't want to hear the answer. Knowing she wanted him to ask it anyway.

"He was in Rome in 2009. Part of the disaster relief efforts—he was a doctor, you see. A cardiac surgeon, but he couldn't just stand by in a hospital, when the world went to hell." The woman of Letters' voice is calm and her eyes are distant, fixed on a point on the wall past his head. "They told me he died a hero. When the aftershocks hit—he helped get everyone out of the shelter before it collapsed. He was one of the last out—the very last, they told me; but maybe they were just saying that, to make him sound more heroic. Almost everyone else made it. It took them six days to dig out the bodies, after the fires were put out."

Sam swallows. "I'm sorry."

"I'd only just been promoted up from an acolyte," Toni says. "I thought, if I'd been there—if I'd learned faster, if I knew more...but I still don't have anywhere near that kind of knowledge. We have some power, but a hurricane, an earthquake—their scope is so beyond us. The tragedy of a natural disaster, that we're helpless to stop them; they just happen, and there's nothing to blame but fate, or God, or simply chaos."

Her eyes drop from the wall, back to his. "Then, the year after that, I advanced another circle, and I learned how some disasters aren't so natural after all. That Lucifer had been freed from his cage. The estimated death toll that year, from the quakes and fires and storms and the rest, has been put at over two million, did you know?"

"Yes," Sam says, all he can say, with the breath squeezed from his lungs. The weight of her stare is like a physical pressure on his chest.

"I suspect that's why I was put on this assignment," Bevell says, still calm. "I've never asked, and I would like to think my intellectual qualifications played a part. But I'm sure the evident personal motivation didn't hurt."

"I—I don't..." Sam exhales, struggles to breathe in again. "There's nothing I can say to you. There's no way to apologize—I understand, though. What you feel, that you hate me—"

"I don't hate you," Bevell says. She's frowning down at him, but there's no anger in her face. "At first, perhaps; but I've learned too much since. I don't believe you intended to free the Devil, and from what we've managed to piece together, you were also instrumental in imprisoning him again. But that didn't undo what you did—everything that you and your brother continued to do, after your resurrections. I've told you, this isn't about punishment, but mitigating some of the harm you've brought about."

Maybe she's not angry, but Sam is now, an acid burning in the pit of his stomach. "And this is my chance for redemption? Giving in to whatever you want out of me? Do you know what Aloysius is planning to do to me?"

"I know you want to do the right thing," Bevell says. "I know you've tried to make things right, in your limited, ignorant way."

"Yeah," Sam says. "Yeah, we've tried. And what were you doing, while we were? When we were caging Lucifer, when we were taking out the Leviathans? Where were the Men of Letters, when the Darkness attacked and the freaking sun was going out? All your research and knowledge didn't count for anything, not when it mattered. My brother's the one who saved us all. My brother, a limited, ignorant hunter—but you wouldn't be here without him. Your son wouldn't be here. Your chapterhouse and your lore and your smug superiority complex—the only reason any of it still exists is because of Dean.

"It's true, I want to do the right thing. I always have—but it's also true, I am ignorant. Half the time I don't know what the right thing is, and that's screwed me over more than once. And people have paid for it—you've suffered for it, your family has, and I'm sorry for that, I am.

"But I've been through enough, done enough, to know what the wrong thing is. And this, what you are, what you're doing," and Sam bangs his bound fists down on the gurney, rattling the frame, "this is wrong. I'm your prisoner, and maybe I can't stop you from getting whatever you want out of me. But I'm not going to cooperate; I'm not going to let you make me into the monster you think I am. I'm going to keep fighting until I get out of here—until I get back out there, get back to doing whatever I can. Doing my best, like we always have."

"And if that's not enough?" Toni Bevell asks.

"Then we—then I keep trying. What else can anybody do?"

Bevell doesn't answer—doesn't get the chance to. The reinforced chamber door swings opens to admit the old demonologist, flanked by two large men in white coats and latex gloves. "No need to listen to him, my dear," Aloysius says, smiling genially at his younger colleague. "Hunters may not have our knowledge or awareness, but those that survive are cunning. He'll say whatever he thinks might get your sympathies."

"I realize," Bevell says stiffly. She's not looking down at Sam, but her gaze doesn't meet the old Man of Letters', either. "You know how long I've researched these men; I'm quite aware of who and what Sam Winchester is."

Aloysius nods. "So you are. Therefore you of anyone can appreciate his immeasurable value to my studies. With the preliminaries settled, we're ready to begin the real work. You'd be welcome to observe, but I believe you have a report to give?" and he nods toward the door.

Bevell hesitates. "You convinced the council that he was too dangerous and irrational to bother continuing with the usual methods..."

The old man's sparse eyebrows lift. "You were at the evaluation; I didn't say much of anything. His actions spoke for themselves."

"He's still a human being," Bevell says, her chin lifted and firm. "Not a monster nor a demon, nor a magical artifact to disassemble and analyze."

"Oh, he's most certainly human," Aloysius agrees. "There wouldn't be much point to this otherwise. Now, if you would?"

Bevell closes her mouth, starts for the door. As she reaches the threshold, Sam says, "Hey, Toni—um, thanks."

That makes her stop, turn halfway back with a frown. "For what?"

It's hard to sound friendly when he's tied to a gurney and has to pull up his head at an uncomfortable angle just to meet her eyes. But he tries. "For stopping by. And actually talking to me. I take it back—you make a decent good cop."

Aloysius sighs, a wheezing, impatient sound. Bevell shakes her head, though something flashes in her eyes. "Good luck, Sam," she says, and the door shuts behind her with the muffled thud of a hermetic seal. Leaving Sam in the white-walled chamber with the old Man of Letters and his pair of assistants.

Aloysius smiles down at him. "So, Mr. Winchester," he says, reaching under his vest to pull out a small vial. Clutched in his quivering hand, the thick liquid inside coats the clear glass, stains it red. "Feeling peckish?"

* * *

 _tbc..._

 _I've seen enough spoilers to know that I've already got a lot of details off - but I knew when I started that this wasn't how it was going to play out. Hopefully I'll have the story finished before season 12 actually starts airing to joss it...in the meanwhile, thanks so much for reading my noncanonical nonsense (is it October yet? ...how about now?)_


	4. Chapter 4

Sam clamps his mouth shut, every time. Hardly more than a symbolic gesture, but it's the only one he can make. Aloysius's assistants pry open his jaw to dribble in the dose, hold a hand over his mouth until the demon blood trickles down his throat.

It doesn't taste like it used to. Or, not taste, but feel. The blood used to burn like high-proof whiskey, fire surging from his gut, spreading throughout his body. Now it's cold and bitter and makes his stomach turn. He'd think it was a control, feeding him regular blood first—but the way Aloysius watches is too intense, too fascinated. Like he expects Sam to literally Hulk out, to transform into some frightening monster right before his eyes.

The man of Letters is obviously if mildly disappointed when Sam doesn't, but he takes notes anyway, scribbling in a spiral-bound blotter as the whitecoats run another battery of tests. Sam doesn't know what they find. He knows his pulse is faster, can feel it throbbing in his temple. But he doesn't feel stronger, not like he used to. When he tugs at the straps binding his arms, there's no more give than before.

Sam closed his eyes, breathes through the roiling nausea. "It's not working," he says. "You might as well drink it yourself. I told you, I don't have it in me anymore. Any powers I had, they're gone."

Aloysius just smiles. "We'll see."

x x x

Eventually Sam is put in a cell—not his old accommodations, but a room scarcely larger than a closet, with cold tile walls that thud dully when he knocks his fist against them. No cot; no sink or commode, just a drain in the concrete floor, and they keep his hands cuffed. There's no windows, only the small, square pane of one-way glass set the steel door. Not big enough for him to crawl through, even if he could break it. Cupping his hands around the glass, he can barely make out the dark shadows watching behind the reflection.

When the guards come to get him, the cuffs around his hands tingle, mild electric jolts reminding him not to resist as he's strapped again to the gurney.

They don't feed him, don't give him anything to drink. Except for the blood, heavy hands forcing his mouth open, dripping carefully calculated doses down his throat. They're measured to the milliliter; Sam tries to lose at least a little every time, leaking out of the corner of his lips. Anything he can do to mess up their tests.

It becomes harder as hunger and thirst set in, as fatigue takes its toll. In the cell or in the examination chambers, the lights are always on, burning bright overhead, and they don't let him sleep more than a few minutes at a time, as far as Sam can tell. There's always another test or another dose, timed for whenever he closes his eyes.

The next time they pour the blood into his mouth, Sam licks his lips, seeking any lost drops, before he remembers he's not supposed to want it. But it clears his pounding head, takes the edge off the gnawing hunger—just for food, for something to eat. One of those greasy burgers, even without the salad. So Sam tells himself. It's only red meat he's craving, that he can see when he closes his eyes. Nothing else.

One or two doses after that, they take him from the cell but don't strap him to the gurney. Instead they push him stumbling down another corridor. Sam doesn't resist, lets his head hang down as if he's exhausted, beaten. As if his pulse isn't hammering and his nerves aren't singing. The guy on his right is huge, of his height and built like a wall, but the one on the left is slightly smaller. Elbow to his nose or elbow to his throat; which is more likely to incapacitate, or to kill?

Before Sam can decide, they bring him into a dark room, yank his chains back. He hears the click of an engaged lock, then the heavy steel door slamming shut behind the guards.

The lights come on, revealing a larger chamber, twenty feet or more across. It's empty of any furnishings save for the hooks along the walls, but one wall is dominated by a mirror, the height of a picture window and stretching across half the length. More one-way glass, Sam assume, though he can't reach it to verify, limited by his shackles, padlocked to the wall behind him.

On the opposite side of the chamber stands a woman, a few years old than him, a little silver showing in her brunette bob. Like Sam, she's chained to the wall behind her, though she doesn't look especially upset or scared about it. More irritated, lip curling.

Her expression changes as she looks Sam up and down. "I don't believe it," she says gleefully. Her accent is American, a weird jolt of unexpected familiarity. "Sam fucking Winchester, in chains. I must've been a good girl this Christmas."

Sam knows what she is, before she even speaks. Before she blinks at him with eyes gleaming black. He can feel the pulse of her blood across the room.

He glances over at the mirror. What does Aloysius expect to see? A feeding? A fight? Or an exorcism?

The last, Sam can oblige him on. If not in the way the Man of Letters is hoping for. He draws a deep breath, begins reciting, " _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus_ —"

A loud klaxon sounds, interrupting his chant. The rune-etched manacles around the demon's wrists snap open and crash to the floor, freeing her. She shakes out her arms as her smile broadens, disproportionately stretching the lips she's wearing. "Oh yeah, a really good girl."

Ignoring her, Sam continues, " _Omnis satanica potestas_ —"

The demon throws out her hand with a threatening curse, and Sam feels the flow of power around him, but nothing happens. He's anchored against her storm—and that's terrifying; he'd almost rather be flung against the concrete, than feel the sick triumph unfurling in his gut.

Collecting himself, he gasps a breath and pushes on, "— _Omnis incursio_ —"

The woman's face twists in a grimace of fury. With a howl, the demon flings herself at Sam.

He reacts without thinking, old instincts brought to the surface by fear and circumstance. This black-eyed asshole is a low-class fiend, a lightweight. A wave of Sam's hand sends her flying back, flattened against the mirrored wall. She stares at him, demon-black eyes wide, equal parts hateful and terrified.

Sam stares back at her, trying to see any glimpse of the person behind the demon. How long has this host been possessed? Is she still alive, or just walking meat?

 _One way to find out,_ whispers a voice in his ear—a woman's voice, a demon's voice, but not this demon's, and anyway it's only in his head. He knows it has to be; Ruby's been dead for years.

 _Where have they been getting the blood to feed to you? Cut off the supply and the experiment's over..._

Only in his head, but it's the reminder he needs. He knows where this road goes. Whatever the Men of Letters think of him, he won't go down it again. He can't, especially not now. Not when Dean's no longer here to drag him back.

Besides, there are other ways. He lowers his hand, dropping the demon, and picks up the chant, " _I_ _nfernalis adversarii_ —"

The demon's head is forced back, the first wisps of black smoke escaping between her clenched teeth as she snarls.

The klaxon sounds again, louder and directly behind him, so deafening that Sam has to drop his head to clap his hands over his ears. Then the demon is upon him, slamming him to the floor, knocking the breath out of him. Before he can resume the chant, the possessed woman's hands wrap around his throat, cutting off his air. "If you're warded, or whatever," she growls, "then I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way."

Sam struggles against her hold, but can't match her demonic strength. Dark spots start flashing before his eyes as her fingers dig in. Her face above him is a mask of rage, contorted and inhuman. Over the roar of blood in his ears he can hear Ruby as if she's kneeling next to him, _You're out of practice but you're strong enough—you can save her, Sam—_

Sam closes his eyes instead, in apology to this woman whose name he doesn't know, who likely is already dead. Her unwilling hands tighten around his neck, darkness veiling his sight. Behind her he hears the boom of the door opening, shouting voices, but they're muffled like his vision.

He has just long enough to hope that the Men of Letters have underestimated their captive, that she'll be fast enough to end this, and then he's out.

x x x

Sam awakens on the gurney, bound again, Aloysius beside him. The man of Letters looks thoroughly pleased. "Quite the impressive showing," he says. "It seems even the low doses are effective. I was curious, however—did you attempt a mental exorcism and fail, or were you refusing to try?"

Sam shuts his eyes, turns his head away from the old man. His bruised neck throbs with the motion.

"If you were concerned about the blood source, there's no need," Aloysius says. "We've plenty more demons—a necessity of my studies, you know. That one was only one of three we've been tapping, all of comparable strengths."

"So you've captured demons." Sam's voice is raspy, his throat aching. By the sharpness of the pain, he wasn't unconscious for that long. "If you've got them trapped, you could exorcise them. Free the hosts, if they're still alive."

"As you always do, of course. Hence your possession of that demon-slaying knife—one of only three known in the world, were you aware?"

"We...I don't save as many as I could," Sam says. "But aren't you supposed to be better than some Neanderthal hunter?"

"Well then, you should be pleased to know, I personally exorcised your recent playmate." Aloysius takes out one of his red-filled vials, holds it up before Sam. "The next phase, determining the efficacy and limits of the magical source. For instance, once a demon is exorcised, does the host's blood retain the relevant properties?"

Sam's gaze is drawn inevitably to the deep crimson within the glass. He wrenches his eyes away to stare at the old man. "What about the woman?" he asks.

"Who?"

"The woman the demon was possessing—did she survive?"

Aloysius releases a short sigh. "Regrettably not, between previously sustained injuries and the blood loss."

Sam stiffens, clenching his fists against the straps binding his wrists. "How much blood loss? Damn it, how much did you take from her?"

"What was required," the Man of Letters says. He uncaps the vial. "Now, shall I summon assistance, or will you be civil for once?

Sam glowers at him for a moment, then reluctantly opens his mouth. Holds still as Aloysius puts the vial to his lips and tilts it up, pouring the thick liquid into his mouth.

He waits for the old man to pull the emptied vial away, to start nodding his approval, and then he spits all of it out. Crimson spatters Aloysius's face, drips over his glasses and into the deep grooves of his jowls, stains his shirt collar.

The man of Letters purses his mouth under that bloody mask, tucks the vial away before he takes off his glasses and starts methodically wiping the lenses clean with a handkerchief. "I find I am constantly underestimating your barbarity. To so callously throw away that poor woman's sacrifice—"

"The poor woman you practically tried to feed to me? I didn't kill her; you did!"

"No," Aloysius snaps, creaky voice firming. "A demon is what killed her. The demons I've devoted my life to stopping." Folding the stained handkerchief over itself, he slides his glasses back on his face, takes out a second full vial and snaps his fingers to summon his white-coated assistants. "Never lose track of the real enemy here, Mr. Winchester."

Sam glares up into the old man's blood-drenched face. "I won't."

x x x

The next time Sam is brought to the room with the mirror, there's a young man in the spell-cast manacles, some poor college kid, probably not old enough to drink, eyes turning inky black as he howls and yanks against the chains. The time after that it's an older woman who reminds Sam of Linda Tran. Then a slightly pudgy guy who looks like he should be behind a tech support desk, not chained to a concrete wall.

Sam tries the verbal exorcisms, never manages to complete them. But he doesn't use the blood's powers again, not even in self-defense. Not even when he can feel the surging energy in his body.

He'd forgotten what it was like. Not just the confidence of knowing he can go toe-to-toe against hellspawn. He's spending most of his days tied to a gurney or pacing in a closet barely big enough for him to stretch out his arms—but when he's standing in that room, manacled, with the demons before him, he feels strong.

If Sam is honest with himself, he hasn't felt this good in years. Since before the Trials, at least. There's no pain, none of the lingering bruises and aches of too many hard falls and close calls. Not a twinge from his knees, his shoulders loose and limber, even with the manacles pulling down his arms. He's becoming used to that weight, to the familiar chill of the metal against his wrists. Even the prickling electricity is less painful, more stimulating.

Sometimes they let the demons go, and sometimes they leave them chained. Once they release Sam's cuffs instead, but he doesn't do anything. Not to the bound demon, anyway; he keeps his distance on the opposite side of the room, and the klaxon drowns out his shouted exorcism.

When the old man gets bored of the staring contest and the assistants finally come to retrieve him, Sam makes his move. Not really expecting it to work, but he brings down three men, and maybe a fourth; he doesn't see for sure. The first taser only stings; it takes two more to knock him cold.

He wakes up back in the testing chamber, strapped to the gurney. His knuckles are bruised, and the back of his head, where he slammed it into one guard's face. Those aches are almost as satisfying as the sense memories—the crack of a broken ulna, the crunch of a smashed nose. Two of the men weren't moving, the last glimpse he got. Maybe he won't see them again.

There are a few leads taped to his arms and chest, and an IV drip running to his wrist, but Sam is alone. The lights are dimmed, and he enjoys the momentary peace. Closes his eyes but he's too restless to sleep. Instead he goes over exorcism rites in his head, trying to piece together an abridged version he might be able to spit out faster.

With no clock, unable to pace or move much at all, it's hard to keep track of time, but hours pass. He tries counting, the numbers being one of the few things he's willing to speak aloud, when he doesn't know who's listening. But ticking off seconds is so boring it hurts, and his mind wanders from one minute to the next so that he keeps losing the count.

Aloysius has been experimenting with dosages, some small, some large. Some have subtly different tastes and textures. Once it was just plasma, pale yellow, thin, flavorless and insipid. There's been a few swallows Sam is sure weren't human, but he can't guess what animal, wonders how a demon was forced into an inhuman host.

Whatever the doses, however, they're forced into him regularly, on a careful schedule, every few hours.

Until now. Sam isn't sure just how long it's been before he registers the headache, a pressure around his temples, slowly building to a steady throbbing. The stiffness of his shoulders doesn't help, but with the straps it's difficult to stretch, and he can't reach to massage the soreness from his skull.

It's just dehydration, he decides. His mouth is dry, difficult to work up saliva in the stale air, despite the IV drip attached to his arm. Hopefully enough nutrients to stave off hunger, when they haven't brought him real food since they took him from the old cell—not that he could eat anyway; his empty stomach is painfully knotted.

The sweat breaking across his brow might be from that nausea. Or maybe the room's temperature has been turned up.

It can't be anything else. It hasn't been long enough, and none of the doses were that much. And he hasn't called upon the blood anyway, hasn't drained whatever power is accruing in his veins.

His stomach rolls over, and Sam clenches his teeth against the wave of queasiness. Nothing there to throw up anyway. He tries to think about the exorcisms again, but his head is pounding too hard for him to keep the Latin straight; he keeps dropping declensions.

He slips into a doze, and wakes to the unmistakable awareness of someone standing over him. Sam opens his eyes, squinting into lights turned piercingly bright. It takes a few moments for his vision to clear, bringing into focus the woman beside his gurney.

Toni Bevell is frowning down at him, her brow almost as wrinkled as Aloysius's. "What?" Sam tries to ask, but only a croak emerges. He works his tongue, tries again. "Why are you here?"

"You look terrible," Bevell says instead of answering.

"I'm fine," Sam says automatically.

"And sound it, too," Bevell says. She crosses her arms, uncrosses them as Sam blinks up at her, teeth gritted against the rising nausea. Finally she thrusts her hand into the pocket of her slightly overlarge jacket, pulls out a glass vial filled with viscous red. "Aloysius instructed me to offer you this," she says. "With the suggestion that I also bring an umbrella."

Sam's gaze locks onto the gleam of crimson visible between her fingers. He licks his lips, for a second almost tasting it, thick on his tongue, sliding down his throat, quenching his thirst, quieting the thumping in his head.

Except there's a voice in his ear, as clear as Ruby's had been, even more familiar but just as impossible. His brother's voice, scathing, low with fury, drawling, _Really, Sammy? After all this, you're just gonna drink it?_

Sam can't tear his eyes from the vial. He closes them instead, hoarsely tells her, "No thanks."

He doesn't need to see Bevell to feel the pressure of her gaze looking him up and down. "If the old man is right, about the spiritual effects manifesting as physical symptoms—and it appears that he might be—then this should help."

"Water," Sam says. He can feel the moisture from his skin soaked into his shirt, into the gurney underneath; the sweat chilling on his brow makes him shiver. "If you want to help—water, please?"

A pause, and then he hears Bevell's footsteps on the tile floor, retreating from him. He exhales, concentrates on the pulse throbbing in his neck. The beat of his own blood—that's enough.

The footsteps return, and something cool is set to his lips. Sam nearly spits it out, before he realizes that it's just water, cold and sweet as sugar on his parched tongue. He lifts his head to swallow, gulping down the contents of the cup in one long drink.

He opens his eyes when he's done, meets Bevell's and says, "Thank you." And means it, even if this is just more manipulation. Stockholm Syndrome has its perks.

Bevell has set aside the vial, both her hands wrapped tight around the plastic cup. "Is it really that awful for you?" she asks. "I was only able to gather sketchy details about this, er, part of the process, but there was no indication that the consumption was especially unpleasant for you."

"The consumption—are you serious?" Sam demands. "You think humans are supposed to drink blood? Demon or otherwise?"

"Not ordinary human beings; but you hardly are that. And your abilities could be so useful, if mastered. We've never developed an exorcism as fast or effective as what you could do, according to the reports I've read. Much less actually kill the demons, and with no additional harm to the host!"

"Believe me, this isn't a solution," Sam says. "Just a bigger problem." The water tasted sweet but now it sits in his stomach like a stone. He swallows back sour bile, says, "Was it drugged?"

"The water?" Bevell stares down into the empty cup. "Of course not; what would be the point?" and she angles her chin toward the IV drip, still stuck in his vein.

Then the nausea is just the shock of something in his empty stomach, drinking too much, too quickly. It must be.

 _You know what it is_. That's not Dean but Ruby, loud as if she's standing on the other side of the gurney from Toni Bevell. _You know how to end it; just ask her for your next dose. It's not like you won't get it anyway, eventually..._

"Sam," Bevell says. When Sam drags his eyes back to her, she's frowning impatiently, as if that wasn't the first time she said his name. "Whatever your reservations...surely a single attempt would be a minor strain, considering how many demons you extinguished before. If we could observe even one psychic exorcism, the data would be invaluable. Possibly enough to replicate it, without further effort on your part."

Sam turns his head on the gurney, away from her. Ruby's voice still echoes in his ears, but when he looks toward the wall he's relieved to see no one standing there. He's sick and dizzy, but not yet that far gone. "You know, the last woman to try to convince me to use these powers was a demon. And I listened to her, and killed Lilith, and broke the final seal on Lucifer's cage."

Bevell is silent, stays silent. Sam counts a minute or more of his uneven breaths, before she finally says, "But Lilith is gone now; the seal is long since broken. And demons still run rampant, especially in your own territory. America suffers more demonic possessions than anywhere in the world, since Lucifer rose; don't you want to do something about it?"

"You've got an answer for everything, don't you," Sam says. "Is that what they teach you, when you're initiated into the Letters? How to always be right, when everyone out in the real world is wrong?"

"What I was taught is that reason is the greatest power humans have. That knowledge and intelligence ultimately are stronger than any supernatural threat."

"So what am I?" Sam asks. "Part of that knowledge—another book in your library, just a little big to fit on the shelf? Or one of those supernatural threats? Because obviously I'm not human. Not in the Men of Letters' eyes."

Bevell puts down the cup. Holds up the vial of blood again. "You're sure you don't want this now?"

His head is throbbing harder than before; his tongue feels swollen with thirst. "No," Sam says.

Bevell nods and sets the little bottle down on the counter next to the cup. Brushes her hands against each other, a nervous, unconscious gesture, like she's trying to wipe away some invisible demonic residue. Sam wonders if she's been present when they've collected the blood, however they do it, by blade or by needle. Wonders if Bevell looks at those prisoners and only sees the demons, or if she spares a thought to the hosts.

 _And how many hosts have you stabbed?_ Ruby purrs in his ear. _You knew my body was dead. But how many were still alive?_ _At least when you drank their blood, some good could come of it, in the lives you saved later..._

Bevell says something else, but Sam doesn't register the words. Finally she leaves, every sharp click of her heels on the tile sending a new spike of pain through Sam's skull.

When he rolls his head back to look at the counter, he sees the vial there, out of reach. Its deep crimson pulsates in his vision, like contrasting colors set too close together.

It makes his stomach heave, forces up the water. He turns his head, coughs up the thin bile. Manages to spit most of it onto the floor, leaving just a small damp patch on the padding by his head. Not much worse than the sweat beading on his forehead, dripping down his cheeks and into the ragged scruff on his chin.

He closes his eyes against the spinning of the room, the illusory tilt of the gurney under him. He concentrates on the working of his lungs, counting his breaths as he tries to keep them even. At least he has that here; in the Cage there wasn't even that much, with no body to ground him.

Eventually he drops into another doze. And finds himself in the bunker, in his room. Bed, sink, television. The desk with his latest research projects spread over it. Just as he last left it, as if Lucifer hadn't touched a thing during his sulk.

There's a knock on the door, and Sam assumes, _Dean_ , a second before he remembers that it can't be. A second after he's started saying, "Come in."

It's not Dean. It's John Winchester. "Hey, Sam," he says, which is wrong, because Dad always called him Sammy. Except this is the father he met in the past, years before Sammy existed, before Sam or Dean was born.

"I'm dreaming again," Sam says.

"Sure," John says easily. "Let's go with that."

Sam looks at him long and hard. "Or else I'm not, and this is a vision."

John shrugs, his hands in his jeans pockets. "Could be."

Sam stands up from the bed. His father—the deception of his father—is young, but Sam's dream self is his waking age, older, larger, taller. He looks down at his hands, flexes his fingers. In this dream he doesn't feel weak or sick; not unnaturally powered up, either. He feels like himself.

He doesn't risk giving himself away with a change in stance, just lunges directly. The real John Winchester would've been ready, on his guard. But this one is too young, or too false; by the time he reacts, starts to bring up his arms, Sam slams him back against the wall. He wedges one arm under the man's chin to pin him, growls into his fake dad's face, "You aren't fooling me again."

"I guess not," John says, calmly. His gentle smile looks all the more wrong for how well it suits his features.

"Stop these tricks—stop screwing with me," Sam says. "Whatever you're trying here, it won't work. I don't need your help."

The smile falls. "I know you don't need it," John says, "or need me—but with everything you're going through...I just wanted to tell you, remind you that you're not alone."

Dream or no dream, Sam has to grit his teeth against the chill that runs down his spine. He doesn't loosen his hold. "Better alone than with you, ever. I don't care what you have to tell me; it doesn't matter. Get out of my head, Lucifer."

John's mouth opens, closes. Opens again. "Ah, hmm, right. That does make sense, really; I should've guessed. But it's not him, Sam. Not now, and not before, last year, in your car. 'Helps those who help themselves,' remember? The other visions were from him, but I'd been hoping to give you a nudge in the right direction...still hoping I could stay out of it. You could say it was cowardly of me, but, well. No surprise there, huh?"

"What are you talking about?"

John reaches up, pushes Sam's arm away. He doesn't use much force and yet Sam can't resist, just lets go, steps back.

The illusion of his father nods. Then, without a ripple or a flash, he's not John Winchester anymore, but Chuck Shurley.

"God," Sam says woodenly. His arms drop, his heart with them.

At least he knows it's not Lucifer. The archangel has too much pride to ever take on this guise, even for the sake of mindgames. But in that case...

"Aww, I thought I'd get more of a reaction than that," Chuck says. His chuckle betrays a quavering hint of nerves. "Coming back from the supposed dead and all. I bet you'd at least have blinked if Gabriel did it."

"One, resurrection is kind of in your job description," Sam says, "and two, not this time. You're gone—all of you, you're gone. I'm just dreaming."

"Yes, you are," Chuck says. "And a little extra—call it a dream-plus. It's all I can get away with. We promised each other that we wouldn't interfere, at least not for a while. After more things are worked out—between us, and back here. But it isn't really interference, to just drop by and cheer up a buddy, right? Besides, I know for a fact Amara's visited a few of Dean's dreams."

Sam shakes his head. "No."

"Yeah, I've been trying to tell her that stalking's not how you develop a relationship—"

"Amara's dead," Sam says. "Like you. Like Dean."

"See, about that..." Chuck glances over his shoulder, back at the open door. There's no bunker corridor showing beyond, just blank gray mist. "I shouldn't really tell you this; it's kind of cheating. But then, that's the Winchester way, eh? The thing is, Sam, the way everything went down in the end...it's not what you think."

"Let me guess," Sam says. "Dean's alive."

Chuck nods, beaming. "Yes, exactly!"

"And you are, too," Sam says. "And everyone else we've ever loved, they're all back from the dead—

"Well, not _everyone_ —"

"And you're here to rescue me and bring me home, and convince the Men of Letters that we're the good guys, and we're all going to live happily ever after."

Chuck's smile falls. "You don't have to sound _that_ sarcastic about it."

"I'm not," Sam says, struggling to catch his breath over the tightness in his chest. It feels real, and that just hurts more. "I just—I can't believe this. Even in a dream, I can't let myself. It only makes it worse to wake up. And that's already hard enough."

Chuck's face falls even farther. "I'm sorry, Sam—I didn't mean to make this more difficult for you. I was hoping...you had faith in me, once. And maybe I never really deserved it. But if you have any left—if you can still do it—have fait in me now, when I tell you, believe in your brother. He's alive, and he's coming for you, and—" He looks back toward the door, where the mist is darkening. "—and that's my cue."

The fog isn't turning black but red, a crimson deeper than Crowley's smoke, throbbing, pulsating. Sam can't look away from it, or maybe there's nothing else to look at. It's flowing through the doorway, filling the room, so he can't see the familiar furnishings anymore, or Chuck.

He can still feel a hand on his arm, can hear Chuck's voice, saying, distant and muffled, "Hold on, Sam. You're strong enough. You just have to hold on, and don't—"

But whatever he's saying is drowned out by a roaring, rushing sound. The red fog fills Sam's vision, leaks into his closed mouth. It tastes foul and sour and cold, and he swallows, drinking it, gulping it down, moaning with dire thirst.

He wakes up on the gurney, his own heartbeat crashing like thunder in his ears, cool glass to his lips and demon blood running down his throat. He coughs and chokes but it's too late; he's already swallowed all of it, a fire more potent than any top-shelf liquor filling his belly.

Sam blinks open his eyes, inhaling until his chest strains against the restraints. The sweats and fever are already gone, and his head no longer aches; but the thirst is still there, scorching his throat. He needs more, wants more. His lips shape the word, but he stops his voice before he can speak the plea aloud.

Aloysius is standing over him. He holds a wide-mouthed jar, larger than the vials. Empty, but the glass rim is coated with red residue. If it was put back to his mouth, Sam would lick it clean.

He shuts his mouth instead, teeth gritted so tightly they grind against each other.

"My, my," the Man of Letters says, examining the empty jar with something like admiration. "You do have a prodigious appetite after all. I was starting to chalk up the stories to mere demonic exaggeration, but it seems that withdrawal is quite stimulating. How useful."

"Go to Hell," Sam says.

Aloysius smiles, puckered lips stretched over crooked teeth. "I'm not the one who's damned; my soul is pure. And maybe yours can be saved, too, if you'd only allow it."

"Too late," Sam tells him.

He's been used by monsters before. At least this time he knows what he is. And Dean's not here anymore to witness it, to be hurt or betrayed or disappointed in him. There's no judgment here that matters, no guilt, no trust or faith to hold him back, tie him down.

He tightens his muscles against the straps—even with the power surging through his body, he's not strong enough to break them. But the Men of Letters can't keep him bound forever. Not when they want to use him. Sam's heart is pounding but he's not afraid, not anymore. He's starting to look forward to it. "But that's all right—I'll drag your pure soul down with me when I go."

* * *

 _tbc..._

 _So many thanks to everyone who's left reviews on this and my other stories - there's always a question, with any fic, whether anybody outside my own head will get or enjoy what I've written. It's so encouraging to know you are!_


	5. Chapter 5

While before the doses were given regularly, they're now spaced further apart. The schedule is inconsistent but not random. Every delay is carefully calculated; they're tracking his temperature, his heart rate, probably magically monitoring his life force and aura while they're at it, to offer the blood when his thirst peaks.

Sam refuses when he's able, to spite them. Doesn't bother feeling guilty, when he's too dazed or desperate to resist.

It's not his choice, ever. He's not wielding the knife; he's not throwing himself into Ruby's arms. The Men of Letters are the ones bringing him the blood; if he doesn't drink, they force it down anyway.

Afterward Sam paces in his cell, three steps forward until he hits the wall and then three steps back, fists clenched, telling himself who is really culpable, as his pulse quickens and his thoughts sharpen. They'll pay for what they're doing to him, for their sadistic curiosity and sanctimonious malice.

He glares at Aloysius when the man of Letters comes to observe. Imagines slicing a blade across his throat, stabbing his rheumy eyes, peeling the parchment-thin skin from his scalp. He can clearly picture the lurid crimson of the old man's blood, the heat of it on his hands. He wants it—not to drink, of course; just to show him that it's the same color as Sam's own, however above him Aloysius thinks he is.

When he's coming down, the vividness of those mental pictures turns his stomach, or did. Sam spends more time thinking about them now, feels less ashamed when he does. Rage is easier than grief. Keeps him awake and focused, seeking escape, rather than hiding in meandering memories and deceitful dreams.

There's little of the past he wants to remember, when his best memories are what hurts the most. Easier to live in the present, take when he can get.

Occasionally he's brought back to the chamber with the mirror and the demons. It's a new host every time. Sometimes they're bound, sometimes freed. Sam refuses every time either to strike them or exorcise them, though he's sure he could. He can feel the draw of their tainted blood across the room, can hear the beating of their stolen hearts. He could drink them dry, or yank the demons out by the roots from their hapless hosts.

But it's what the Men of Letters want, what Aloysius is waiting to see, and Sam's not going to give them that satisfaction. When the demons attack him, he fights back, but only with his fists and feet, with his years of training and experience. The chains that bind him are solid iron; they can hold a demon, at least for a little while. And once he's got the latest victim pinned, he stares into the mirror and bares his teeth in a triumphant smile at his real enemy. He might be their prisoner, but he's stronger than any of them.

It takes two or three men to drag him from his cell or the chamber and secure him to the gurney after, and they can't manage it without at least one broken nose or black eye among them. They keep upping the voltage on the cuffs, the tasers; Sam wonders how much higher it can go before it stops his heart. He breathes through the sting; the electric current is only a pale imitation of the power building in him, that starts to sear him when he's left dry for too long.

He's had enough of that pain. Had enough of all of this. He's stronger than this, better than this.

(He's had enough of how weak he feels, when he's gone too long without, emptied and shaking and bathed in sweat. He's had enough of the voice he almost hears then—always the same voice, _Sammy, how could you—_ but it's just a delusion; he's never too far gone to mistake it for anything else.)

Aloysius is watching the next time his medical minions strap Sam to the gurney and pour the blood down his throat. He doesn't try to fight them off this time, instead drinks it all down. Licks his lips, meets the old man's eyes and says, "More."

Aloysius cocks his head thoughtfully, then nods. The whitecoats measure up another beaker, put it to his mouth. Sam drains it in one long swallow, says again, "More."

"Quid pro quo, Mr. Winchester," Aloysius says. He taps his fingers on the refrigeration unit beside him. "This latest batch is, shall we say, a special vintage. Newly captured, the strongest yet—not quite a Knight of Hell, but of the higher echelons. Can you perceive a difference?"

Sam glares at the man. Then clenches his teeth over his desire, turns his head away.

Aloysius sighs. "Very well. Give him one more liter, then bring him to the observation chamber. The next test is nearly prepared, and I want him at his best."

x x x

Only two guards take Sam down to the chamber. They're both big men, but not big enough. The moment his wrist is unstrapped from the gurney, Sam slams the closer man in the solar plexus, dragging him closer when he folds over and wrapping his arm around the man's neck.

The other guard's dealt with Sam before, though, with a mottled bruise over his cheekbone to show for it; he's ready for trouble. He jumps back out of reach, levels his sidearm at Sam's forehead. Pistol, not a taser. "Let him go!"

Another bullet to the shoulder or gut, Sam might be able to take. Probably not to the head, though, even with the juice in him. He loosens his hold, lets the other man slump to the floor.

"Bloody hell," the armed guard mutters. He nudges his comrade with the toe of his boot, eliciting a groan. "I told you to watch out, Mick. The ones that look human, they're always the worst."

"I am human," Sam says. Wipes his free arm across his mouth, smearing flaking red on his wrist.

The guard snorts, his eyes flat. "Yeah, tell it to someone who hasn't seen your diet. Don't know what kind of thing you really are, but that's not what I'm getting this bonus for. Now are you going to behave, or should I call in backup?"

Sam looks at the man across the barrel of his gun—.45 caliber, heavier than the standard Berettas; the guy came prepared. And he's got an earpiece; backup might already be standing by.

Sam shrugs and lies back on the gurney. It takes the guard a couple minutes to prod his coworker into standing, wobbly but aware enough to glower at Sam as he undoes the rest of the straps. The gun stays trained on Sam's head the whole time, as he's yanked up, unresisting, and marched into the chamber. It's dark as usual, but the light from the corridor is bright enough to keep the guard's line of fire clear. Sam stays still, lets himself be manacled to the wall.

As soon as the second cuff clanks into place, the staticky buzz of a loudspeaker sounds. Aloysius's disembodied voice commands, "Thank you for your troubles. I won't be needing assistance this time; Mr. Vance, if you would, see that Mr. McClintock gets to the infirmary, and I'll summon you when we're done here."

The guards nod curtly and depart. The closing door drops Sam into pitch blackness, a silent vacuum unbroken by any further commentary from the man of Letters.

It's been a long time since Sam was afraid of the dark. Still, enough minutes go by that he's starting to wonder if Aloysius is still there. Maybe the old man suffered a heart attack, or maybe he's gone senile, wandered off with his experiment incomplete...

The lights click on. Sam squints against the harsh glare, willing his eyes to focus.

The woman chained to the opposite wall is doing the same. Every motion echoed in the mirror beside them, she cautiously raises her head, shaking back the loose blonde hair hanging over her face.

Sam frowns. It's Toni Bevell, stripped down to a plain cotton blouse and linen slacks, her hair freed from its usual tidy ponytail. For a moment she looks baffled, as if she has no idea where she is or why she should be here.

Then she screeches like a banshee, charging for him as her eyes blink solid black, and Sam jerks back in involuntary reaction.

Though the demon's chains are longer than his own, they've been carefully measured; they stop Bevell's body short a mere yard from Sam. It strains against the fetters, shoulders braced and head tipped back to scrutinize him with those inky eyes.

Then the demon chortles, relaxes back to get enough give to straighten up. "So you do know her," it says. "I thought you might—I haven't been able to get everything out of this sticky little brain, but I thought I saw your face."

Sam looks past the demon to the expanse of the mirror, demands, "What the hell have you done? She's your colleague—how could you do this to her?"

The demon's smile widens. "Oh, she did it to herself."

Sam snaps his head back to glare at the creature. Bevell's face leers at him. "Happened just this morning—she walked right into my cage and read off the exorcism herself. Just the first half, getting me out of my old host but not sending me downstairs. Awfully polite, I thought. Especially since she'd gone through the trouble of making herself all hospitable," and the demon pushes up the sleeve of Bevell's shirt, enough to reveal the tattoo on her biceps. The pentagram's clean lines are sliced through, broken by a long laceration, the cut scabbed over but still the angry red of a fresh wound.

"No." Sam scowls at the mirror. He can't see Aloysius through his reflection, but he can feel the old man watching, his skin crawling from that callous observation. He longs to wrap the chain on his wrists around the geezer's scrawny neck and pull until he hears bone crack. "Is this supposed to be an extra incentive? Making it personal? I'm still not going to do it. You can save her yourself—exorcise her now, before this thing can hurt her. Take care of your own, instead of using them!"

There's no answer, except the demon's giggle. "'Save her! Save her!'" It paces back to the further wall, testing the binding chains, trying to take them into her hands, only to hiss a curse at the magic's burn. Black eyes roll malevolently at Sam. "Save yourself, Winchester. Soon as I get free, I'm taking the blood they took from my last meatsuit back out of you."

But Aloysius hasn't released its chains yet, or Sam's, and Sam tenses. The old man is impatient, and he wouldn't just count on Sam's tenuous rapport with his junior colleague; he must have something else in mind.

Even knowing that, Sam's still not expecting it, when the door behind him swings open. It's not a guard who enters; not Aloysius, either.

It's just a child, a redheaded little boy, maybe six or seven. He's rubbing his eyes sleepily—clear eyes, not demon-black, and Sam relaxes a fraction; they haven't gone that far, at least.

"Hey, kid," Sam says, trying to pitch his voice softer, more gentle. The manacles prevent him from kneeling, but he ducks his head to make himself a little less frighteningly tall. "What are you doing here?"

The boy blinks up at him timidly, shying back from the looming stranger. Then looks past him to the chained demon, and his drowsy eyes brighten. "Mama!"

And the thing inside Toni Bevell raises her head, eyes clear and seeming human, and grins. "Sweetie," she croons, and Sam doesn't believe the real Toni would ever sound like that, so falsely saccharine. Doesn't believe she'd ever smile at her son with such vindictive cunning. "Come here!"

The boy, with the innate instincts of the young, hesitates. "Don't," Sam gasps, trying to reach for the kid, but he's just out of range. "That's not your mother—it looks like her, but it's not. Stay back with me, and you'll be safe—"

"Darling, don't listen to the bad man," the demon says. "He's a liar and a thief—now, come to me, quick, before he can hurt you," and she kneels and opens her arms, the chains tucked under her elbows.

The boy glances up at Sam, eyes wide. He clearly knows something is wrong, but in this strange place, confused, frightened, he goes for the comfort of his mother.

"No!" Sam lunges as the kid darts forward, trying to intercept him, but the chains jerk him back. The boy skids past him and flings himself into the arms of the demon.

Toni's body snatches the child up, holds him close. It looks like an embrace at first, until the boy squirms, whimpers, "Mama, that hurts—"

"Shut up, brat," snarls the demon, clamping a hand over the boy's nose and mouth to silence him. It turns to the mirror, says, "Thanks for the hostage. Now how many of its cute little bones am I going to have to snap, before you let me out of these irons?"

Sam fights at his own chains, the metal cuffs biting into his wrists. "Let him go!" he bellows. "Stay the hell away from that kid!"

"Language!" the demon chastises. "Small ears, you know," and it flicks one earlobe, hard enough to make the boy twitch, his whimper muffled by his mother's suffocating hand. Over that gag his eyes are huge, round and brimming with tears.

"Come on," the demon says, "where's the key? Chop chop, there's a kid on the block here."

Sam stares at it, at the terrified child trapped in what should be loving arms. Then he pulls himself up, letting the chains go slack, turns back to the mirror. "Forget it," he says. "This is just a damn trick. You think you're the good guys—you wouldn't feed a kid to a demon, just to motivate me." The demon in Toni Bevell is real; even from yards away Sam can feel the evil in her blood, his own heart beating in time with its irresistible ebb and flow. But the boy has to be a ruse of some kind, an illusion spell or a tame shapeshifter or some deceptive artifact from the Letters' collection.

The demon cocks its head. "You think so?" it says thoughtfully. Removes its hand from the boy's mouth to grab his wrist and wrench back sharply.

There's an unmistakable crack, and the boy screams, piercing and agonized. The demon winces, irritably slaps a hand back over his mouth to stifle the cry. "Sounds convincing to me, but honestly, I don't know much about kids."

Sam is pulling against his chains again, and can't even feel the manacles tearing his flesh. He's seething, the fury like a living thing inside of him, shoving and scraping inside his skin. It's the demon blood, he knows; but it's also his helplessness, and the cruelty of the Men of Letters, these purported protectors of humanity. Even if the kid's only a trick, it's sickening that they cast those tear-filled, frightened eyes just to get to him. Even though he's supposed to be the brutal one, the hunter, ignorant, destructive, less than human.

The demon in Toni is literally tapping her foot, like it's waiting in line for a coffee, child hostage casually slung under one arm. The monster looks from Sam back to the mirror, says, "Nothing, really? Is he right about this brat being a hoax?" It shrugs. "Guess there's one way to find out."

Changing its hold to suspend the boy by his collar, the demon pulls back the woman's fist, raised before her son's face.

A demon's strength could kill a child with one blow. But it doesn't throw the punch, just stands there, frozen. The boy hangs in its grip, curled around his broken arm, shaking with sobs, and the demon only stands there, staring at him.

No. Not the demon. Toni's face is bone-white and her jaw is locked so tightly that the muscle tics in her cheek. A drop of blood wells along her mouth, from her bottom lip caught between her gritted teeth. " _No_ ," she forces out through them. "I w-won't!"

Sam can feel the demon, still in her blood; but Toni's eyes are clear, not black, and he can see her in them, struggling, desperate. More terrified than her son, and cold realization snakes through his rage. They could fool him, could fool a demon—but a mother would only fight this hard for her true child.

Toni's fist is still pulled back, but her fingers unclench from their grip on the boy's collar, each digit uncurling knuckle by knuckle with agonizing effort, until finally he falls from her hand. The kid screams with shock as he hits the floor, the impact jarring his injured arm, and Toni's whole body jerks with the cry.

Her eyes flutter, slam shut and open again black. The demon straightens up, wipes the back of Toni's hand across her bloody mouth. "That's enough from you, bitch," it snarls, then scowls down at the wailing boy. "And you, too, shut up!" One heeled shoe draws back to deliver a kick, and this time the blow comes without hesitation, aimed at the kid's chin.

It doesn't land. Sam throws out his hand and his power with it. The demon is flung into the far wall, chains rattling. Pressed back by invisible force, it glares impotently at Sam.

"Hey, kid, it's going to be okay," Sam says, fighting to keep his voice even, to tamp down the fury that's making him tremble. Out of the corner of his eye he can see himself in the mirror, see the shivering boy. But the man watching behind it still does nothing. "You're safe now."

The boy turns his pale, tear-stained face up to Sam. Sam nods encouragingly. "That's it, just get up—"

"Don't listen to him!" the demon hollers. The boy shudders, ducks his head back over his broken arm, as the thing in his mother hisses, "Nothing will keep you safe from—"

With a sweep of his arm, Sam sends the demon flying, thrown against the limits of the chains, snapping the iron links taut and creaking. Toni's head is tossed back, hair whipping wildly, face contorted into a pained grimace.

Sam's head is pounding, but it's not the agony of overexertion; he's steady on his feet and his vision is clear. He's strong, even out of practice; the power of all he's drunk is there for the taking. And this is only one demon, not even a particularly formidable one. Probably not the fiend Aloysius was boasting about feeding him from, just a low-level flunky. A vain, spiteful, venal little monster that's barely worth the effort of exorcising.

Sam's lips pull back from his teeth in a snarl that might be a smile. A worthless demon, but maybe not useless. He narrows his eyes and throws the demon again, towards the other wall—towards the mirror, doubling all of this insanity. It's not the reflection he cares about, though, but what's behind it.

The demon's body smashes into its flying mirror image, the heavy manacles around its wrists banging against the glass. Cracks spiderweb out from those points and the impact of its skull, but the pane remains intact.

Sam cocks his head and flings the demon against the mirror again. It shrieks, the glass crunches and the cracks spread.

The monster tumbles to the floor beneath the mirror, moaning. As it slowly starts to pick itself up, cursing his name, Sam raises his hand to wield his flesh and blood hammer once more.

Something grabs the chain fastened to his manacle, tugs it—too weakly to move his arm, but he glances down at the unexpected distraction.

The wide, wet eyes of Toni Bevell's son stare back up at him. "P-please," the boy whimpers, breath hitching, "please, sir, don't hurt my mama—"

"It's not your mother," Sam says—thinks he says; he can barely hear his own voice over the thunder of his heartbeat. He yanks the chain out of the boy's grasp and casts out his hand.

The demon's body slams a third time into the mirror. With an explosive crash the glass shatters, shining pieces raining down to reveal the dark room beyond.

In those shadows, far enough back to avoid the fallen glass, Aloysius stands framed, hunched and smiling at Sam. "Crude, but effective," he pronounces.

The demon snarls, twists its body draped over the shattered mirror's sill to claw at him with bloody nails, but it's still chained; the aged man of Letters is beyond its reach.

Sam closes his hand into a fist, and the woman's body convulses, coughing up the swirling miasma of the demon. She collapses, slumped over the sill with her head hanging down, as the black cloud pools on the chamber's floor like a heavier gas, a writhing, roiling mass of evil.

Aloysius hobbles forward to press two fingers to Toni's throat. He nods, though whether confirming her life or death Sam can't tell, then leans out over the broken frame to peer down at the gathered smoke. "Impressive expulsion! Now, if you can complete its banishment?"

Sam looks at him, then at the exposed demon. He can feel it, curling and coiling in his grip, as clearly as he can feel his own lips stretched over his teeth, the throbbing of the blood in his veins.

Keeping his fist clenched, his power focused, he turns his wrist. The demon's miasma moves with his gesture, churning up over the broken mirror's sill like a pot boiling over. The black smoke eddies around Aloysius's legs as he totters back. "What are you..."

Sam opens his fist, palm to the ceiling, and the demon's smoke spirals up the old man's body, a clinging, sticky residue of corruption. Aloysius's eyes snap wide as he shakes his head, fruitlessly trying to beat back that darkness with flailing hands. "Not possible—I'm warded, trained—!"

He's not lying; Sam can feel the old sorcerer's protections, etched onto his body and ingrained in his mind, not a single wall but layers of barriers.

But Sam has known his share of demons, outside himself and within. He's pulled them out and pushed them away; he knows every corner of a psyche they can wind and wend into. There are cracks in Aloysius's defenses, gaps in his barricades.

The demon on its own isn't strong enough to penetrate them.

Sam is.

The smoke reaches Aloysius's mouth and forces inside. The old man gags, head wrenched back, bucking like he's seizing. Brittle limbs collapse, drop him to the floor. He shakes for a moment more, then goes abruptly still, dark blood dripping from his nose and ears.

Sam suffers a momentary pang of disappointment, and then the prone body shudders. The squeezed-shut eyes roll open, pitch-black mirrors as the demon climbs to its feet, moving in lurching starts, like a puppet with tangled strings. It drags a tweed sleeve across its bloody nose, rasps, "Ugh. This is a tight fit. And so...creaky."

Pulling its head around to fix black eyes on Sam, it asks warily, "So what's your play, Winchester? Why suit me up instead send me down? Just thirsty?"

 _Yes_. "No," Sam says, ignoring the pounding in his skull, as he ignores Toni's limp body, ignores the choked sobs of the boy cowering in the corner. There's a warm trickle leaking from his own nose, metallic when it reaches his lips. He lifts his manacled hands, says, "Get these off me."

"What's in it for me?" says the demon.

Then jerks backwards as Sam briefly exerts his power, and sags when he releases it. "No deals," Sam says. "No alliances, no games. Your host should know the way out of this place. Once we're clear, you'll get one minute to vacate."

The demon yanks its lips into a smile almost as cruel as Aloysius's. "I don't know...this old guy's growing on me. You should see what he's got stashed up here, in just the bits I can get into," and it taps a quavering finger against the balding pate. "I've got six centuries in the Pit, but he knows things I've never—"

The musing cuts off in a groan as its shoulders slam back into the wall. "One minute," Sam repeats.

"One minute," the demon wheezes agreement. Sam lets it go again, and it clambers its aged figure over the broken mirror frame. Its gait is limping, and every motion is twitchy and jittering, like it's caught in an electric current. Sam can't tell if that's due to forcing too-old muscles into strenuous action or because the demon doesn't have full control. He doesn't care either way. It looks like it's painful, and he's intimate enough with possession to know the host is feeling all of it. That's enough to make him smile, as the demon drags its husk of a body over to Sam.

Fumbling in its host's pockets, it finally pulls out a key, undoes the manacles. Sam lets them crash to the tile as he stretches his arms, rubs his wrists.

"What, no 'thank you'?" the demon snarks, then jerks up its head at the clang of metal.

Sam spins with it, to see the door behind him opening. Three guards charge in—his buddy Vance with the bruised cheek, and two others; Sam doesn't remember their faces, but by their half-healed injuries they're also former playmates.

They enter armed, guns drawn. Obviously they're aware that something's up, but sketchy on the details, by how they all stumble to a shocked halt in the doorway. Taking in the broken mirror, the woman's body slumped over its wreckage, the child sobbing in the corner. How much of this experiment were they let in on?

The demon raises its hands. The black is gone from its eyes. "It's all right," it says, in Aloysius's reedy, refined accent. "A minor technical difficulty, but everything's under control; if you'll just excuse us..."

For a moment Sam thinks it's going to work. Informed or not, the guards obviously have a healthy respect for or fear of Aloysius. Sam's bruised buddy throws him a suspicious look, but they start to lower their sidearms.

Until a faint, unsteady voice insists, "Don't—don't listen to him!"

Toni Bevell drags herself up off the broken mirror's frame, swaying even with one hand clutching at the wall. Blood streaks her face and hair, stripes the hand she extends towards the demon. "Not—Aloysius," she gasps out. " _In nomine domini!_ "

God is dead, but his name still has power. The demon growls, deep and inhuman, eyes flipping to opaque darkness. He lurches around to backhand the woman, hard enough to knock her to the floor.

Sam has to credit the training the Letters give their guards; they don't panic, just level their guns at the possessed host. Vance starts to recite in Latin—an exorcism, Sam assumes; he doesn't wait to confirm.

With the distractions of the demon, they haven't noticed his unlocked chains. Sam takes out Vance with an haymaker that adds a matching bruise to the man's jaw and sends him sprawling. He floors the second guard with a roundhouse kick, not flinching as his gun goes off. The bullet flies past his ear to bury itself in the ceiling, and Sam slams the man's head into the tile to keep him down.

The third guard scrambles backwards, out of Sam's reach, keeping his pistol up. His finger tightens on the trigger, and Sam braces himself to take another bullet even as he charges.

The demon acts first, flinging the man against the wall with a wave of its hand, knocking the gun out of his hand. Sam follows it up with an uppercut, but the man doesn't go down, suspended as he is in the demon's grasp. Just hangs there, dazed eyes rolling: an easy target, when Sam hasn't had any in too long.

He's got plenty of experience with hand-to-hand, more than he ever wanted; he knows how to throw a punch. Or two—three—four—he stops bothering to keep score, lets the rhythm of his harsh panting count off his blows.

The guard is bleeding from most places he can before Sam's knuckles start aching. By then the man's eyes are swollen shut, hard to tell if there's any consciousness left, but when Sam lets go of his collar he folds to the floor, slumps on his side, silent but for the faint wheezes whistling through his pulped nose.

"I like your style, Winchester," the demon says behind him. "But are we getting out of here or what?"

Sam turns back to face the demon. Frowns when he sees Aloysius's bony arm wrapped around the little boy, Toni's child. The boy dangles, head drooping, no longer crying but slumped and still in the old man's grasp.

"What'd you do?" Sam demands.

"Little late for the conscience to kick in, isn't it? It was just a love tap; he'll be fine." The demon gives the small, limp body a shake. "Was getting tired of his whimpering, and I figure he could come in handy—hostage, snack, whatever."

Sam scowls. "Fine, but don't hit him again."

"N-no..." On the floor behind them, Toni struggles to rise. She pushes herself up on trembling arms but can't seem to get her legs to support her. She stares up at them through the ragged, bloody curtain of her hair. "Please—my son—don't take him..."

"Nice of you to worry about him now," Sam says. "If not when you were letting a demon into you."

"Lied..." Toni's shoulders heave with her labored breaths and her eyes are unfocused, but her face is turned toward her son. "I'd never—Aloysius—you promised—to keep him safe..."

"If you gave a damn about your son's safety, you shouldn't have brought him into this!"

"Wasn't supposed to...you promised!" Toni gasps, paying no heed to Sam, reaching toward the demon in Aloysius's body. "You promised to take care of him, if anything went wrong—Jamie wasn't ever supposed to be here! If I did this...you said you'd keep him far away—from me, from the demon—you lied—!"

"You know, you've got spunk," the demon says. Dropping the child like a sack of potatoes, it crouches before Toni, grabs a hank of loose hair to yank back her head and examines her face. "A bit too much, but you're definitely more limber than this bag of bones I'm in now. Hotter, too. Maybe I should trade back."

"If you're going to, then hurry up," Sam says. He stoops to retrieve the guards' fallen firearms. "We should get out of here. There's probably more guards coming. And possibly bigger problems, depending on whether Aloysius told the rest of the chapterhouse about this experiment."

"S-sam?" Toni's eyes are pulled to slits by the demon's grasp on her hair, voice strangled through her bent throat. But she's fighting to turn her head, to look at him. "How—how can you do this?"

"Do what, escape?" Sam sticks one pistol in the elastic back of his pants, pulls the firing pin from the second and tosses the pieces aside. "Just like this, apparently."

"W-with a demon? You wouldn't—this isn't you— "

"It's me," Sam says. The words drop like molten iron from his tongue; they don't resonate, don't echo back in his mind. His thoughts remain clear, rage burning off any dragging debris of doubt or pity. "You and Aloysius and the rest made me strong enough to do this. So I am." He checks the clip of the third gun, rams it back in place and tells the demon, "Pick a host and let's go, or I'm ganking you and leaving on my own."

"Okay, okay. Hold your horses." The demon releases its grip, letting Toni slump to the floor. With wizened, shaky hands it unlocks the spelled manacles around her wrists. "Don't want to go in and end up trapped again," it tells Toni, conversationally. "Have a feeling my partner here," and it smiles back at Sam, all teeth and barbs, "would leave me to rot."

"Sam," the woman of Letters says, only a whisper. She can barely lift her head from the tile. One of her arms is trapped under her; the other she reaches out toward the prone body of her son, leaving bloody smudges as she claws at the tile. "Please..."

Sam raises the pistol. Finger off the trigger, but ready for problems. "Hurry up," he tells the demon.

Aloysius's head rocks back, mouth dropping open as black smoke streams from it. Like an amorphous tentacle it coils through the air, arrowing down to Toni. She shudders, spine arching as the demon plunges in.

As the last of the smokes leaves Aloysius's body, he crumples, folding over like a tent with a broken pole. Perhaps his heart gave out under the strain of the forced possession, or else the demon overtaxed his decrepit physique. Sam doesn't bother checking for vitals; he doesn't care.

The demon in Toni sits up its restored body, dragging fingers through the matted hair. It nods once, pulls the lips into a parody of a grin. "Yeah, much better." It gathers Toni's legs under, begins to stand. "Now let's blow this—"

—and stops. Lurches forward onto all fours, shoulders rounding as it makes fists of her hands against the tile. "What the—"

"What's wrong?" Sam demands impatiently. "Move it."

"I'm—trying," the demon grates. "This is—" Its black eyes suddenly widen. "Oh, you—you _bitch_ —!"

The blood stains smeared on the tile are bright red under the demon's fists—more vivid even than heart's blood, gaudy crimson outlining the distinct, careful shape of an unknown sigil. The black clears from the demon's gaze, quick as soap cutting through oil, leaving Toni's eyes bright with pain and purpose. Through clenched teeth she chokes out, "Aloysius, now!"

Sam spins back towards the other fallen Man of Letters, aiming the gun even before he sees the old man, a huddled, trembling heap on the floor, something gleaming in his gnarled hand.

Sam pulls the trigger, but even before the thunder of the gunshot reaches his ears, he sees that it's too late. Aloysius takes the glass shard he's holding—a piece of the shattered mirror, a good half a foot long—and stabs it into his own chest, an instant before the bullet hits his shoulder.

The impact spins the old man half around as it knocks him back to the floor, but his impromptu blade made it home. Or Sam assumes it did; it's hard to see for sure. The glass shard clutched in that talon of a hand is shining so brilliantly, not just reflecting light but burning like a captured star, like an angel's grace.

Like the stone glowing in Billie's hands, until its energies were channeled into Dean.

Soulfire, perhaps the most potent power in the universe.

Sam stumbles back, throws up his arm but can't block out that dazzling light, as if it can shine through his very flesh.

Behind him the demon screams, shredding Toni Bevell's voice. Sam can't see it through the radiance, but he can feel the riveting pull of its tainted blood—and then it's gone, snuffed out, every trace of the demonic presence erased from his perception.

The light keeps burning, brighter, and even brighter, scorching, blinding, worse than staring into the sun. His eyes ache from it, and his blood is boiling.

He hears the noise behind him, dragging footsteps stumbling on the tile, but in the agony of the light he can barely move. He doesn't even know if he still holds the gun, can't feel his fingers through the pain. Out of the corner of his eye he can just make out a slender, shadowy figure, scarcely even a silhouette showing against the encompassing brilliance.

A solid mass crashes into the back of his head. The excruciating light goes out, and takes everything with it.

* * *

 _tbc..._

 _Thanks to everyone who's been reading, whether you've left reviews or favorited or are just lurking quietly and seeing where it's going! I hope any of you are still here after this, eheh...sometimes you have to hit bottom to figure out which direction is up?  
_

 _Thank you too for your patience for the wait between chapters. My hope is to have the story finished before the premiere airs; am not sure if I'll make it or not, but I'm going to try. Meanwhile the spoilery promo pics from the premiere that have been released have me all excited, and not just because one of them shows Toni with a notebook in a still that could've been straight out of this story. (Cannot link in ffnet's infinite wisdom, but my SPN tumblr idontneedasymbol has the post.) I know this fic is going to be jossed to oblivion as soon as the season starts, but I still can't wait!_


	6. Chapter 6

Sam comes to lying on the floor. His head is aching and his body is bruised and sore from the cold concrete. There is a wall behind his head, another against his feet, and a steel door before him. He's confined, trapped and abandoned and furious as he shoves to his feet, slams both fists against the door. It thuds dully under the blows, barely reverberating.

He pauses, but there is no sound outside, no clink of a lock, no footsteps approaching, not even a whisper of a voice. Sam beats his fists against the door again, bellows, "No, damn it! Let me out of here! Or else come in and face me! You aren't doing this to me again—you're not putting me through this again! You asshole, you fucking coward—get in here, Dean, and tell me—"

He chokes, freezes. His last hit left a smear of blood on the door's steel, but there's only silence behind it. Nobody out there, outside this cell which isn't Bobby's panic room—couldn't be; that burned years ago.

Dean isn't listening to him outside the door, not this time. Not ever again, and Sam lifts his arms once more, brings his fists crashing down against the door. He kicks it, slams his shoulder against it, his whole body, hollering curses, more invective than magic.

The unyielding steel doesn't so much as rattle, and no one answers his shouts.

Eventually his voice gives out. He staggers back, the couple short steps it takes until his shoulders hit the far wall. He slides down it, knees gathered in front of him, chest heaving as he pants for breath. His knuckles are split and his feet and shoulders are bruised, but he can't discern those individual aches over the throbbing of his body, the pounding of his head.

He reaches up, prods the welt on the back of his skull. Wonders, vaguely, if Toni struck him with the extra gun he tossed aside, or some other weapon. The heavy manacles, maybe. It doesn't matter. He failed—his one chance, his last chance. They won't risk giving him the same freedoms again. They're bastards, these Men of Letters, but they're not stupid.

A draft from the small ceiling vent blows across his skin, makes him shiver with an abrupt chill. Clumsily Sam wraps his sore arms across his chest, rubs the gooseflesh pebbling on his bare biceps. The ragged t-shirt, stiff and tacky with dried blood and sweat, offers little warmth. He slides on his butt back into the far corner of the cramped cell, out from under the vent.

Between his time unconscious and the fit of rage, he has no idea how long it's been since his last dose. Too long, especially after his exertions with the demon. Even as he shivers, he's still sweating freely, and his stomach cramps with nausea.

He looks up at the door, at the little mirrored window set in the steel, glass thick enough that it didn't crack when punched square on. Is anyone is watching through it? Maybe they've come after all, if he missed the footsteps during his outburst; or maybe someone's been here all along. Peeking inside, taking notes.

Sam drops his head into his hands, rakes his fingers through his lank hair. He doesn't know how long it's been since he had a shower. Since he brushed his teeth, combed his hair. Had a hot cup of coffee, a cold beer.

He doesn't want any of it. Thinks maybe he should, but that's not what he's craving now, not what he's thirsty for.

He curls his hands into fists, pulling at the drying scabs over his knuckles until they tear. The sight of the red blood beading on the backs of his hands turns his stomach, even as it makes fresh sweat break across his skin.

 _Monster_ , whispers a voice that isn't there. Can't be there. _Vampire._

Sam shuts his eyes on the empty cell. Drops his head to his knees and listens as hard as he can, but all he hears are his own harsh, too-fast breaths.

x x x

He doesn't know when he falls asleep, but he wakes from the restless, dreamless doze knowing that he's dying.

It's more than just the uneven, rabbit-fast thumping of his heart, more than his tongue swelling in his mouth or the surge and subsiding of pain along his nerves. He's been dying before—has died before, after all, enough times to recognize the feeling, the darkening of his mind, options and opportunities closing off, like doors being shut one by one.

The door to his cell is already closed. Still closed. He crawls to it, drags himself halfway upright, curled over his cramping stomach. "Please," he says, reaching up to the mirrored window, clawing his fingers down the cold smooth glass. "Help me, please, I need—I can't—please—"

 _You should've drunk more, while you could've_ , Ruby murmurs.

Sam twists around, but no one is there, of course.

Except he can hear her, right behind him, just out of sight; can feel her breath tickling his ear—cool breath, a corpse's chill. Her blood had burned with power, but her fingers had always been cold. He can feel them now on the back of his neck, caressing gently. " _You needed everything you could take, if you were going to push yourself like that. Now you're bottoming out already. I wish I could help you..."_

In spite of himself, Sam snorts. "Like you _ever_ helped me."

 _"All I wanted was to help you,"_ Ruby tells him. _"To help you be stronger, better—I could always see you, Sam, better than anyone,"_ and he'd almost forgotten the way she could say his name, the pity and the wonder _. "I could see what you could be—what you've become. That trick with the demon, forcing it past that old man's defenses—I've never seen anything like it, not from the most powerful witches. You're amazing, Sam,"_ and she's a demon and demons lie and Ruby worst of all—but she sounds so sincere, so heartfelt for all she had no working heart.

"Shut up," he says, squeezing shut his eyes, pressing his heated head to the door's cold steel.

He can still feel her chill fingers, small and strong, kneading his shoulders, soothing a fraction of the ache throbbing through his skull. _"I hate what these bastards have done to you,"_ Ruby says, " _but I'm glad you got to show them your true power, your true self. I only wish you didn't have to suffer for it...if you could just drink from me—"_

Sam shoots out his hand, and for a moment he thinks his fingers close around a slim arm, soft skin—

But no; he's only made a fist in empty air. "You don't have any blood—you're not here. You're just in my head."

" _So I am,"_ Ruby replies, and he can feel her arm around his waist, her lithe body pressing up against his side. Can smell her, that floral scent she used, that almost covered the sulfur. " _Still, after all these years...I'll always be here, Sam. For you. Believing in you, even when no one else does..."_

Sam laughs. It hurts his throat, but so does talking; so does breathing. "They do," he says. "The Men of Letters, they believe in me. You're not the only one who can see what kind of monster I am—you're not the only one who's paid for it, either. Just because I was stupid enough to fall for you doesn't make you anything special, Ruby—it just means I'm an easy mark."

There's no answer. After a moment Sam opens his eyes, looking around his narrow confines. Empty, of course.

He exhales, rests his head against the wall, turning a little to avoid bumping the lump on the back of his skull against the tile.

 _"...You showed her._ _Not bad, boy."_

Whiskey and the mustiness of old books. Sam jerks his head up so fast it spins. "B-bobby?"

 _"Right here. Or, well, an approximation thereof. Best as you're going to get."_

Sam blinks hard to get his wobbling vision to focus. Bobby stands across from him, farther away than he should be able to get in the cramped cell, and yet too clear, from the threadbare jeans to every stain of oil and ichor on the battered baseball cap.

"You're not real, either," Sam tells him.

 _"Never claimed to be."_ Bobby pushes up his cap, crosses his arms. _"Good news for you, huh? Imagine what I'd say if I was really here, seeing you like this."_

Sam folds his arms over his chest, curls his knees in more tightly. He can feel sweat crawling down the back of his neck but he's suddenly cold enough for his teeth to chatter, as he says, "He—he'd say fuck the Men of Letters, for doing this to me."

 _"That what you think?"_ Bobby narrows his eyes, sharp, studying Sam like he's a cipher in Ancient Greek. _"What you really think? They gave you the blood, but you're the one who drank it. If they came in here now with a jar of the stuff, would you really tell them 'no thanks'?"_

Involuntarily Sam glances back toward the door—but no, there's no footsteps, no rattling of the lock; no one is coming. He shakes his head, says, "Bobby wouldn't—he knows, he knew me—"

 _"Yeah, I did. I knew how weak you are."_

"He forgave me," Sam says. "For Lucifer—he shouldn't have, shouldn't have been able to, but he told me, he said he wouldn't cut me out."

 _"No, I wouldn't,"_ Bobby says, shaking his head regretfully. _"Too good a man for that. But thank God for cheap whiskey. Sometimes that was all that got me through the disappointment. The exhaustion of trying to believe in you and getting let down again and again and again."_

"No," Sam says. The grating of his teeth send pangs down his jaw, through his skill. "That's not Bobby—you're not Bobby."

 _"I fought with your dad, but there were times I understood. Looked at you, how you turned out, and wondered how he managed at all."_

"You—no, not you— _he_ wouldn't—"

 _"And then, your brother—"_

Sam stiffens, pulling himself up, every aching muscle in his body drawn tense and tight. "Don't."

Bobby heaves a sigh. _"Damn near killed me, seeing Dean, seeing what you did to him—what it took out of him, every time he had to clean up after you, every time you betrayed him—"_

"Not another damn word, don't you—"

 _"At least he's not around for this; maybe it would've been his last straw—"_

 _...done trying to save you..._

Sam shoves himself off the wall, throws himself at the older man with a cry of inarticulate fury. His wild punch swings through Bobby—like trying to attack a ghost without any iron, except there isn't even the freezing draft of a spectral presence. There's nothing at all, and Sam stumbles, off-balanced and too dizzy to correct, crashes to his knees on the unyielding concrete.

The bruising jolt from that impact distracts him momentarily from the fog of rage and thirst. Not real, not any of it. He looks up at the tile walls, squinting against the light—it's not any brighter, but it hurts his eyes now. Studies the sigils and emblems stenciled on the tiles, running along the floor and the ceiling. No, no ghosts can get to him in here; no one can. He's alone, except for whoever is watching outside the door.

He rolls his eyes up to the little square mirror of the window. Asks, rhetorically, "So have you seen enough? Learned enough from me yet?"

"Almost, " Toni Bevell says. Her heels click on the cement floor as she strides forward, shading him from the painful light as she gazes down at him. "But I'm afraid we're not quite done with you yet, Sam."

Sam swallows, even as his hands curl into fists, clenched against his thighs. "How much more proof do you need? Is this really worth it?"

Toni reaches down, presses two fingers to his throat to measure his speeding pulse, then brushes the hair back from his forehead to judge his temperature. Her touch is cool but impersonal, not Ruby's seductive comfort. "The withdrawal reactions do seem severe, but not yet critical. And half your symptoms now are more likely due to dehydration and the concussion." The brush of her fingers against the knot on his head makes him flinch.

He drags himself backwards, out from her shadow, until his back is against the wall. "It's not just what the blood is doing to me—you were there; you know what happened to you. To your son," and he should ask, but he doesn't want to know. Doesn't want to care about how badly hurt the boy might be.

"What's that?" Toni arches an eyebrow. "Are you trying to fake some guilt? A bit late for that act, don't you think?"

"I'm not the guilty one—it wasn't my fault," Sam growls. "It's yours, it's Aloysius, it's all of you—you put that kid in danger; whatever happened to him, it's on your heads—"

"Is that what you tell yourself? How you keep hunting, day after day, year after year, fighting through the rising tide of spilled blood? You convince yourself that the evil started elsewhere, that it's forced upon you. That you're as much a victim as anyone who dies around you."

"No—"

"That you weren't the one who killed Charlene Bradbury. Who killed Kevin Tran and Samuel Campbell and Ellen and Joanna Harvelle—"

"I didn't," Sam says, dropping his head, pressing his hands over his ears, but it does nothing to muffle the woman of Letters' voice, strident, accusing.

"Do you really believe that, Sam? That you were only a helpless infant when Azazel bled into your mouth, and so you've been just as helpless to prevent anything that followed. It's not your fault, not really, that Lucifer was released and Heaven fell, that the Darkness walked the Earth. It's not your fault that because he knew you, Frank Devereaux is dead, and Rufus Turner and Martin Creaser, and of course Bobby Singer, for all he loved and trusted you—and wasn't that touching, that even now you fight to believe his faith in you would've survived his death—"

Sam's head jerks up at that. "But it did," he says, his voice hoarse and thin; he can barely hear it over hers. He says it anyway, "I've talked to Bobby in Hell, in Heaven—he doesn't—

"

"You hope he doesn't," Toni says, "but deep down you know—that vision you had of him now, was that just a fever dream, or was it the truth you don't want to admit?"

Sam frowns. "How do you know what I'm hallucinating?" He sits up, pressing his palms to the concrete floor to straighten his back as he looks up at Toni Bevell. "How—how did you get in here?" He'd been looking right at the door; it didn't open. And the cell was far too small for her to have been concealed in it.

Toni glares back at him, jaw set with familiar determination. Her hair is pulled back in a meticulously sleek bun; her eyes are cold and her face is expressionlessly smooth, not the faintest bruise or scar showing on the pale skin. "Do you think I look like this now?" she asks. _"Do you think you didn't hurt me, not really, not so badly that it would show?"_

Sam stares at her. Then rocks his head back, hard enough to knock the welt at the back of his head against the wall.

The burst of pain pulls tears from his eyes, but it's more than that moisture that makes the vision of Toni twist and shimmer like a highway mirage, her voice fading in and out. Sam's lip twitch in the start of a smile he's too exhausted to finish. "So it works on these delusions, too," he mumbles, shutting his eyes on the hallucination. "Good to know..."

 _"No, Sam,"_ Toni says, and he feels her hand on his chin, turning his head upward, although she's not really there. Her voice returns, like the volume's being dialed up on some internal stereo. _"You can't get out of this that easily."_

Except that's no longer Toni's crisp British accent, but another woman's voice, so much more familiar despite how long it's been since he last heard it— _"Do you think it's not your fault that I died? Do you blame it all on Azazel and his manipulations, that you told me you loved me but never told me the truth about you?"_

The fingers on his chin dig in, hand sliding down to close around his throat, forcing his head up higher. _"Come on, Sam, open your eyes—if it wasn't your fault, shouldn't I be unharmed? Why would you imagine me burned and bleeding, if it wasn't your fault?"_

He keeps his eyes shut, but with her tight grip he can't pull his head back to evoke the clarity of pain. He can't block out her voice, the scent of her shampoo—he's never been able to smell green apple aromas, without remembering—not char or ash, but that's no better. It might be worse. "Jess—no—not you—it's not really you—"

 _"Keep telling yourself that, Sam. It should be easy—I was never real to you anyway, was I? Just a symbol of the life you thought you wanted. Just a pawn to get you on the right path—and here you are, all these years later, blameless and full of demon blood, like you were always meant to be, while I'm long dead and gone and forgotten—"_

"No," Sam says, "I never, I don't—"and he's delirious and she's not real, but he has to open his eyes anyway, has to see her.

She's not burned, but she's not how he remembers her, either; she looks older, older than he ever saw her, older than she ever got to be—the same age he is now, still tall and lean, a statuesque woman with a deeply dimpled smile. And she's not real but Sam feels his heart move, feels himself falling for her all over again, as hard as the first time he saw her, _Sam, get over here! I've been meaning to introduce you, this is—_

Jess looks down at him, her hand around his throat, smiling, and her eyes burn yellow, blank and malevolent. _"Hello, Sam,"_ she says, and her voice is Jess's voice, but her tone is the sardonic drawl of the yellow-eyed demon. _"So good to see you again—to see you still carrying on where I left off, all these years later."_

Sam tries to pull away, but her unreal grip is strong as steel, fingers digging in; he's strangled by it, breath cut off and paralyzed. Jess pulls Sam up with one hand, shoves him back against the wall, lifted until his toes are off the floor.

She grins up at him, dimples showing. _"What do you think, Sam? Like the new look?"_ Still gripping him, she leans closer, lips to his ear. Ruby's breath was cold but hers is hot. _"Who do you even think is talking now—Jess, or Azazel? We're both dead, we're both forgotten—but it's not your fault, is it, Sam?"_

Jess opens her hand, letting go of Sam's throat; but he remains hanging in place, pinned to the wall. _"So, which one of us do you think has been wanting to do this to you?"_ She lifts her hand, almost laconically, and Sam slides further up the wall, shoulders ramming the corner. Then he's passed it, is flattened on the ceiling, limbs splayed out, staring down at Jess as she tilts back her head to fix her yellow eyes on him.

 _"Yes,"_ she says, smirking, _"It's so much better from this angle."_

Sam tries to struggle, tries to break free—he can't move his body so he pushes with his mind instead, gathering himself, drawing up all the power still left in him, until his head is pounding and blood drips from his nose. He lashes out, striking at the figure below him, shoving back as hard as he can.

Nothing happens. Jess just cocks her head, puts her hands on her hips and says, _"Nice try, Sam. But I'm not really here, and you're low on juice—there's just enough left to do this,"_ and she slashes one finger through the air, and Sam feels the gash open in his belly, feels the hot blood soaking into his t-shirt.

He screams, less pain than fury and despair, that it's Jess doing this to him—has to be Jess, the one he deserves it from; but she doesn't deserve this. Her memory shouldn't be desecrated like this.

His body was already on fire, burning from the inside out, but now the stench of smoke is filling his nose, his lungs; he's coughing, choking on it. It stings in his eyes, or maybe those are other tears, blurring his last view of Jess below him with her dimples and her yellow glare.

Over the crackling roar of the building fire, he only faintly hears the clank of solid metal, then shouting—not alarm, but rhythmic vocalizations, not in English, though the syllables are familiar—" _Ab insidiis diaboli, libera te—_ "

Without warning, the force holding him vanishes, and Sam plummets. The ceiling of this little cell is not that tall; he barely has time to register he's dropping before the floor slams into him. Fresh pain explodes across his body, a blow hard enough to knock away the delusions, and his consciousness with them.

x x x

Sam is in a room—his room in the bunker, perhaps; except the mattress under him is wrong, the lumpy springs of a shabby motel room bed.

Something is hanging over his head—small soft shapes, swaying a little in a light draft. He frowns up at the mobile, the tiny baseball bat and ball and glove, all crafted from plush felt. It's familiar without being recognizable, like a song you don't remember hearing but can sing along to anyway.

His father is standing over his bed—not the younger version, but John Winchester as Sam last saw him living, worn and weary, resolute and grieving. _"This shouldn't have happened,"_ John says, shaking his head. _"Never should've gotten this far—I told your brother—"_

Before Sam can answer him, another voice says, _"You were the one who brought it to this—who raised him in this life, raised them to do this."_

Sam turns his head toward that quiet, feminine fury. His mother, in her bloodstained nightgown, glares across the bed, over Sam, at his father. _"I never wanted this,"_ she says. _"For you to do this to them, after I did everything to keep my children from this life—"_

 _"Everything, after it was too late,"_ his father says, brow and voice both lowered in the stubborn anger Sam remembers all too well. _"The first demon blood in his mouth was thanks to your deal—"_

 _"But that he kept drinking it—long after that yellow-eyed bastard was gone—who taught him to put the fight over himself? Who taught him that he wasn't strong enough, that he needed to be more?"_

 _"He needed to be strong enough to survive—to survive what was coming for him, because of the road you set him on—"_

 _"The road you led him down, pushed him down, even when he tried to find another way—"_

"Mom," Sam tries to say, "Dad—" but though his lips move, all that comes out is wordless babbling, a distressed wail.

His mother and father both stop their arguing to look down at him. _"Now look what you've done,"_ his mother says, and puts her hand on his forehead, gently strokes back his hair. _"It's all right, Sammy,"_ she croons. _"It won't hurt for much longer."_

 _"Take it easy, son,"_ his father says softly on his other side, resting his hand on Sam's chest, a warm, heavy weight, pressing him down into the mattress's rough springs. _"This'll all be over soon."_

 _"Maybe if you'd taught him to make better choices,"_ his mother murmurs, withdrawing her soothing touch from Sam's head.

 _"Maybe if he'd been stronger than you,"_ his father returns, lifting his own hand.

"Please," Sam tries to say, but it's as garbled as before. His cheeks are wet, saltwater burning his cracked lips. "Don't..."

His parents are stepping back from the bed, out of his line of sight, their voices fading.

 _"Maybe if we hadn't decided to try for a little girl..."_

 _"Maybe if we'd never met at all..."_

"Don't," Sam begs, "please don't go," but they're already gone, leaving him alone.

Above him, the baby's mobile catches fire, a single spark jumping from the ceiling to the little plush ball. The felt flares up, disintegrating into smoldering, stinging ash that rains down on his face as the flames crawl along the string, spreading from ornament to ornament until they engulf the entire toy.

He cries as he watches it burns, and thinks—remembers—maybe only thinks he remembers, that someone should be holding him, carrying him away from this destruction before he too burns.

But there's no one, not here, not anymore or ever. And the flames don't incinerate him now, but dwindle down as the embers float away, one hypnotic orange speck at a time. His voice cracks and gives way, until he's left in silent darkness, shivering and mute and wondering if he burned after all, nothing left but cold cinders.

 _And for my ashes, I like it here..._

There probably wasn't even that much left. Far too late now to collect whatever might have been scattered, regardless.

He blinks back tears, then realizes he can blink. That he sees light above him, not flames, but a blurred white circle that gradually resolves into a lamp. Softer light than in his cell, and the surface under him is softer than that concrete floor, so soft it's like he's floating.

For a while he drifts on that cloud. He's still thirsty, throat parched and body aching, but whenever he tries to think of how to remedy that need, he's distracted by the light above him, the softness below. So he never gets as far as trying to stand, trying to speak.

Eventually something intervenes, a darker shape moving between his eyes and the lamp. Sam doesn't know how long it's there for, before he decides to focus on it. The fuzzy oval reveals itself to be a face, pallid and drawn, its pink lips moving. _"Sam,"_ they shape, compellingly congruous with the sound flowing over his ears. _"Sam, can you hear me? I don't have much time..."_

A cool touch on his arm starts gentle but then tightens, digging in. The sharp pang of bruised flesh jolts Sam off the cloud, a fall that's no distance at all, and therefore can go on forever.

He struggles, tries to right himself, only to find he can't move his arms, that they're trapped—which doesn't make sense, when he can't feel any manacles, not even the leather bands biting into his flesh; but the padded straps around his wrists hold him as firmly in place, for all they hardly hurt.

"Sam!" Toni Bevell says, cupping her cool fingers around his face, turning his head to force their eyes to meet. Hers are wide—scared? Or maybe concerned, for reasons he can't fathom. "Please, you have to stay calm—if your heartrate goes up too much, someone will come to see what's wrong, and I'm not supposed to be here..."

"You're not?"—but of course she's not; she has her son to worry about, to protect from him, from what he could do.

"Jamie..." Toni's face screws up like she's about to cry. "Jamie's fine, Sam. He's fine." She doesn't look like she did in his cell; there are flyaway strands escaping her ponytail and her face is wan, scrubbed naked and raw. Most of the left side is mottled by a swollen bruise, and butterfly bandages close a red cut high on her forehead.

"This is all wrong," she says. "We—we were all wrong. And I'll be paying for it—Aloysius as well, should he ever wake up. We didn't—or, I didn't; I'd studied, but I didn't know, I didn't realize...whether it was you, or wasn't you, I don't know. But you wouldn't have done it without the blood, that much I'm sure of."

Her accusations before, in the cell, were painful. But what she's saying now is worse, is too much like forgiveness. Sam tries to turn his head away, but Toni's slender fingers are stronger than they should be, holding him in place as firmly as the cuffs around his wrists.

"Sam," she says, "we're doing what we can for you, but...there are treatments suggested in Aloysius's notes, though only hypothetical, and what some of them require... But the sedatives and analgesics are already losing effectiveness, and no spells are working. We've tried consulting with the healing specialists at the Vienna chapterhouse, but they're reluctant to get more involved, since demonic power is by definition dark magic..."

Sam tries to shake his head in negation, licks his chapped lips. "That's not...I need..."

Toni blenches. Her fingers passing over his brow are cool but not soothing, the touch too tentative, like the brush of a moth's wings. "I know—I know what you need, but there's none. Aloysius's final spell banished every demon in containment, and neutralized the blood—all except for what was in you, apparently. And the Elder Circle has forbidden any more demons to be captured, until Aloysius's fate has been decided."

Sam closes his eyes, lets his head fall back, sinking into the pillow. Every second he's awake and aware, the need rises in him, worse than thirst or hunger or lust or other physical demand. His nerves sing with it, his body trembling.

He doesn't remember it being this bad before; or maybe he just doesn't remember anything clearly. It's hard to think, between the drugs and pain and the haze of thirst.

"Sam," Toni says, and Sam almost snaps at her to go away; almost begs her to leave him alone.

 _"After what you did to me?"_ Toni demands; but not the same Toni as the one standing beside him now, when he opens his eyes again.

This Toni is saying, "You're still the chapter's prisoner, but...whatever you did, you've more than paid for it. I've told Lord Scantlebury, but he's not inclined to listen to me now—fair enough, for me; but you...Sam, I'm so sorry."

He realizes finally that it's not forgiveness she's offering him; she's here instead seeking her own absolution. Which isn't his to grant, but he tries to say, "It's...it's all right."

"No," Toni says, eyes brightening as her voice thickens. "It isn't, not at all. I've even prayed, prayed for you to be saved, but there's been nothing."

"Prayed?" Sam asks, momentarily distracted by confusion; he hadn't taken the Men of Letters for religious types. Certainly not Toni, who went so far seeking proof rather than believe without it. "But there's no one left to listen..."

Toni shakes her head. "Not as a spiritual act; I prayed to your angel friend. I thought he might be able to get you out of here, even if I can't. But Cassiel hasn't come, or answered, or anything."

Maybe it's a trick. If Toni is really here at all, then perhaps all of this is; another way to extract information from him, a last-ditch effort to get what little more they can from him.

Except Sam can't believe that, not now. Not after everything. He can't believe that this woman's drawn face and burdened eyes are a lie; he can't bear to live in a world with that much cruelty, with that little hope. He can't bear that this would be the world his brother died for.

"Castiel," he says, his eyes going up to the ceiling, the warding stamped around the edge of the wall, as it is in every room here. "His name's Castiel."

* * *

 _tbc..._

 _I originally was thinking this story would be about 10K words long. How does this keep happening to me? Especially since I haven't actually gotten to the scene I was going to_ start _with...that'll be next chapter._

 _Endless thanks to everyone still reading along, and leaving reviews - knowing you're out there is what keeps me posting!_


	7. Chapter 7

"Castiel," Toni repeats, only whispering it. "Sam, that's—"

A soft click announces the opening of a door Sam hadn't noticed before. He rolls his head on the pillow towards it, tenses to see a woman in a white coat enter. Her face is vaguely familiar, perhaps one of the people who put him through the medical tests before.

Her eyes are solid white.

Sam throws himself back, twisting away, wrenching his arms against the cuffs, but there's no give.

"Ms. Bevell, you shouldn't be—" Lilith starts to say, and then, "No—Mr. Winchester, stop that—"

Her voice is a mocking parody of concern, but her smile is all savage pleasure. Restrained as he is, Sam can't escape her hands on his arm, and he can't push her back, his power staying dormant though he strains until his head is throbbing. As she adjusts the IV taped to his vein, Sam futilely tries to squirm away from those pale blank eyes, shaking his head. "No—get back—you're dead—get your hands off me! You're dead, I killed you—!"

"Sam," Toni says, on the other side of the bed now, grabbing his other arm, "you have to calm down; she's just trying to help—"

"Dead or not, did you think I would stay away from this?" the demon gloats. "My one chance to get revenge?"

"Revenge? It was what you wanted—you wanted me to kill you!"

"Hardly," the white-eyed demon snarls, sudden wrath distorting the triumph, "but that's not what this is about. No, I'm here for someone else. My favorite pupil—my last real student, before you offed me; my legacy. And sure, he'd strayed from the path now and again, but he was doing so well on the Mark—oh, that was beautiful to behold! Only you had to go and ruin the fun."

Sam freezes, staring into those hideous white eyes. Not Lilith. Alistair.

"Such a shame," Alistair says, shaking his host's head with a condescending cluck of the tongue. He plants a hand on Sam's chest, shoves him down into the bed, fingernails digging in. "What a waste of pure homicidal potential. Dean Winchester could've been the greatest monster to ever walk among you sniveling humans, but you couldn't have that. Instead...instead you go and get him killed!"

He twists his palm, tearing flesh, drawing blood, and Sam shudders, choking on the pain and shock. "I—I didn't," he moans, "I didn't kill him—"

"No?" Alistair leans in, hot breath on Sam's face, as his fingers jab deeper into his chest. "You made him the key that unlocked the Darkness. Did you really think, did you ever actually believe, that Dean wouldn't do what he had to, to put right your sin?"

On the other side from the demon, Toni is repeating his name, saying things that Sam can't make out, over Alistair's sneer. "All those decades we spent together in Hell—longer than you ever knew him for—I knew everything that made that boy tick, every button in him that could be pushed. What he'd do, why he'd do it. When the time came, he didn't even hesitate, did he, Sam? I bet he held his head high and walked right to his oblivion, without so much as reminding you whose fault it really was...

"But don't worry, Sammy," and Alistair takes Sam's chin in his bloody hand, presses small fingers under his jaw, against the carotid. "Now's our chance to set the facts straight. Make sure you understand. Dean's gone, but you're still here. Right here, with me."

Releasing Sam's chin, the demon takes out a syringe, injects clear liquid into the IV port. "No—don't—!" Sam protests. He yanks at his wrist, trying to scrape the needle loose with the edge of the cuff, but Toni clamps her hand over it, holding it in place.

Sam stares at her desperately, already feeling the numbing lassitude spreading through his limbs. "No—no, it's a demon—look at his eyes!"

Alistair, white eyes blinked back to ordinary brown, looks from Sam to the woman of Letters. Shakes his head and says, satirically solemn, "This is near the limit; he's dangerously close to an overdose as it is. The adrenaline, along with the demonic factors in his blood, are counteracting every sedative far too quickly—but the strain on his heart...otherrwizze... _izzz..._ "

The rapid-fire words slow, stretch like taffy into droning, incomprehensible sounds. Though the light overhead doesn't dim, Sam's vision darkens, until all he can see are Alistair's eyes, empty white, staring down at him with gratified, gleeful cruelty. "Maybe you're not long for this world," the demon says, his true voice unaffected, ringing in Sam's ears, "but not to worry; we're all waiting for you in the next one. But then, why wait..."

x x x

Time was already difficult to track, with no watch to tell him how long he sleeps for. It becomes impossible when Sam can't be sure whether he's asleep or awake, can barely tell where the nightmares end and nightmarish reality begins.

He dozes off, and Meg is there, in her first host, walking with him along the side of the road, telling him about the fun they could have had.

He wakes up and there's Brady, sitting at the foot of his bed, asking Sam why hadn't he noticed, why hadn't he smelled the sulfur, how could he have looked into his friend's eyes day after day and never seen the demon looking back? _"You could have saved me,"_ Brady says, _"if you'd been drinking this stuff then."_

Sarah Blake can't speak, her mouth dripping blood until he can't look at her anymore. Madison snarls at him, eyes werewolf bright. Then she's gone, too, lost in shadows. The light above him was bright when Sam last remembers it, but it's off now.

The dim glow from the small corner fixture is barely enough illumination to pick out the features of the figure by his bed. Dark hair, light trench coat.

Sam blinks and squints, disbelief warring with hope. "Cas?" His voice is only a croak, his throat bone-dry, tongue leathery and too large in his mouth.

Blue eyes fix on him with that once-disconcerting intensity. "Sam," Castiel says back.

"Cas! " Sam gasps, studying his friend, seeing no signs of injury. "Oh, God—you're not hurt, you're all right."

"Yes," Cas says. "And you are not."

"Could be better," Sam admits. He's feverish, muscles aching, head throbbing; but he feels giddy enough to laugh. It's been so long since he saw a familiar face; he almost can't take the sheer relief, the joy of not being alone.

"No," Cas says, his expression not changing, "You could not be."

Sam frowns in confusion.

"You could not be better than what you are," Cas says. He looks as he did when Sam last saw him, when Toni's spell banished him, in his newer trench coat with the striped tie; but his voice is grim, forbidding—the cold resolve of the angel of the Lord Sam met all those years ago. "You have never been and will never be anything more than an abomination."

Sam exhales. Lets his head fall back on the pillow, relaxes his arms in the cuffs. "And you're not Cas; you're just in my head."

"Oh?" Cas leans over him and smiles, broadly and more alarming than his most intense stare. "You sure about that? I'll give you a hint; you're fifty percent correct. I'm not Castiel. Again."

He's hallucinating, tripping on the demon blood. It's just a figment. He knows this, and yet Sam can't stop his breath from catching in his throat, can't stop his shoulders from going rigid as stone.

Though his clenched jaw he grates, "Surprised it took you so long to show up, Lucifer. Guess you're not my worst nightmare after all."

"Oh, no, Sam, I'm not a nightmare," Lucifer says, grinning with Cas's mouth. "No hallucination this time; I'm here for real. Your new girlfriend, that lady of Letters, she tried phoning home, and got me instead. Recently back in action," and he looks down at himself, strokes one sleeve of his coat. "I admit, this vessel's grown on me. It can be so much more expressive than that stick-in-the-mud little brother of mine ever was with it."

Sam shakes his head. "Cas wouldn't say yes to you, not with the Darkness gone—he wouldn't do it."

"You think?" Lucifer cocks his head, puts a thoughtful finger to his lips. "Not even if he was really, really desperate? Say, oh, if he'd just lost a friend, the only real friend he had left in the whole world. Just imagine, if he'd happened to get himself banished, and by the time he made it back he couldn't find his good buddy anywhere. And there was no one he could go to for help, what with that whole last remaining friend thing; no one he could turn to, except..."

" _No_ ," Sam says, "no, he wouldn't, Cas would never—not again—"

"And you'd never drink demon blood again...but we know how that turned out, don't we, Sam?"

"You're lying," Sam gasps, "you're not real—you're not—" thrashing his head against the pillow in desperate negation, fighting to see through this illusion—-has to be an illusion, a vision. Lucifer had been in the bunker before, in Sam's room—but Dean had been there, and Chuck, and the world was in danger and Sam hadn't had time to be afraid. And before that Cas had been there, fighting back the archangel; and before that, Dean was coming to save him.

And before that, Lucifer had only been in his head, and Cas had saved Sam from that madness, too. But now Lucifer is standing over him, grinning with Cas's mouth, and Sam can only hope that he's insane again, that it's only he who's broken, not anything that really matters. _You wouldn't, Cas, not for me, you couldn't do this—_

The corner of his cheek catches in his clenched teeth, and Sam bites down until he tastes iron. The spurt of pain is not the bright, stabbing surge of real injury, but it's clean and sharp and brings the room around him briefly into focus. Lucifer before him remains clear—but too clear, against the shadowy backdrop. The malevolence in those blue eyes, the sharp white teeth in his smirk—it shouldn't be possible to make out those details, not in this dimly lit room.

Sam lets go a breath that shudders like a sob, collapsing back against the mattress.

"Aww, why'd you have to go and spoil it?" Lucifer complains. "I'm disappointed in you, Sam. Last time you were so willing to do your penance—threw yourself in the Cage with me without hesitation.

"Now, though, you've been drinking the blood again, but pretending you won't have to pay for it. Don't you want this, Sam? Don't you need me to balance the scales, make sure you get the justice you deserve? That's what you really want, isn't it—what you need. These Men of Letters, you won't take their punishment or their mercy; they haven't proved themselves worthy to pass judgment on you. But I know you, Sam, better than them. Better than almost anybody."

"You don't. You don't know me—I said no to you before; you couldn't break me."

"But that was the Lucifer out there," Lucifer says, singsong, pitching Cas's voice high and fey. "Me...like you said, I'm in here," and he taps his finger against Sam's forehead, just off-center, his touch the searing cold of dry ice. "Watching the parade go by, your ghosts coming out to play. Shame you can't salt and burn your memories, isn't it, Sam?"

"No," Sam says, shaking his head. "I wouldn't—I wouldn't forget anything, anyone—"

"Oh, wouldn't you?" Lucifer puts his elbows on the bed beside Sam's pillow, props his chin on his knuckles. "All these haunts from your past, but there's something missing, isn't there. Someone missing. But he's sure to come sooner or later—you can't hide and you can't forget, not forever. And his judgment, you'll have to take. You always have."

 _I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster. A vampire._

But the memory stays only a memory, in Sam's thoughts, not in his ears, even imagined.

He closes his eyes. When he opens them again, Lucifer is gone, as if he were never there at all. Sam is alone.

He lies back on the bed, feeling saltwater sting his eyes and wind its way down his cheeks, but with his hands bound he can't wipe it away. "Please," he whispers to the empty room, but his voice is cracked, almost too hoarse to be heard, even if anyone were listening.

Toni Bevell comes back, only it's not really her, because though she's alive, Sam's pretty sure he's fallen asleep again. Then Toni is Linda Tran, who is also still alive, but probably not here with the Men of Letters, probably not asking him why her son is gone, why even his spirit was taken from her.

Sometimes Sam can hear his heart pounding like a jackhammer, so loud in his ears he can barely hear his own hallucinations. Other times he can't tell if it's still beating at all. His head throbs until the agony makes him heave up drips of bile from his empty stomach; he sweats until the mattress under him is soaked for all he's shivering so hard his teeth chatter.

He can feel the Darkness crawling through his veins, the corruption of it, though he knows that's gone for good. Even in his delirium, he's sure of that. Amara's gone.

So is Gadreel, though that doesn't stop him from appearing before Sam. _"Perhaps I should not have saved you,"_ the angel says. _"Perhaps if I had not, the Mark would not have been passed on, and the Darkness would never have been released, and no sacrifice would have been required to stop it."_

Sam falls asleep again, or something like it; his eyes must be closed, because he can't even see the corner lamp. Just blackness.

Blackness, and a voice. _"How did this happen, Sammy? We came so far, but now you're just back here again."_

Sam strains to see, to peel back his eyelids and peer through the darkness. By the dryness of his eyes, they're open, but he still sees nothing. Maybe he's gone blind.

 _"This is what you always were, wasn't it. A bloodsucking freak I had to pretend was my brother."_

"No," Sam says, shutting his eyes. "Dean never said that."

 _"Are you sure? I told you that voicemail wasn't me, but did you ever totally believe me? How many other times did I lie to you?"_

Orange-red pulses behind his eyelids. "I know when you're lying. You weren't lying, not about that."

His brother's voice warps, harshens to sneering contempt. _"What about when I told you how you destroyed my life? Got my mom killed, forced Dad into this life, and he dragged me along—was I lying then, that it was all your fault?"_

Sam almost smiles, because this at least is Dean, if not the brother he loves. "You were a demon when you said that."

 _"And you think that means it wasn't true?"_

"Demons don't care about what's a lie, what's the truth; they just want to hurt."

 _"Is that so? Then let's see, how can I hurt you now? How about this, Sammy?"_

"—Sammy?"

The red against his eyelids intensifies, as fingers touch his cheek, brush back his hair. A cool, soft hand presses briefly to his forehead, falls back to his shoulder to give him a gentle shake. "Sam, can you hear me?"

It's his mother's voice. Sam pries open his eyes. The darkness is pierced by a wavering beam of light, blinding in his eyes, if not as scorching as Aloysius's soulfire. He winces in that glare.

"Sorry," his mother says, and the beam abruptly drops away, flashlight angled down to glitter on the metal needle of the IV, as she plucks it from his wrist. Her shadowed, pale face turns toward his. "How do you feel? Can you get up?"

"No," Sam says, shaking his head, "they've got me strapped to the bed," except when he tugs at his arms to demonstrate, they float up, unrestrained.

So this is a dream, then. He looks around, wondering. "Where's Dad?" John's been in his dreams more often than his mom.

Mary's hand, wrapped around his wrist with her fingers pressed over his pulse point, goes still. Then she says quietly, "He's not here, Sammy. It's just me. Mary—your mother."

"I know," Sam says. As if he wouldn't recognize his own delusions. Her hand comes up again, hovers above his straggly bearded cheek; then her arm loops around his shoulders, helps prop him upright.

"Mom? Is he up yet?" Dean wanders in through the door. In the stripe of illumination from her flashlight, he's either too old or younger than he should be—tall enough to be wearing their father's leather jacket, but small enough that it hangs off him, shoulders not yet broad enough to fill it. "Come on, Sammy, we're going to miss the fireworks."

"Fireworks?" Sam asks, confused. He can't remember what holiday it's supposed to be. It's not warm enough to be the Fourth, but New Year's is usually chillier. Unless they're somewhere down South this year.

"Sure," his mother says, "yes, fireworks—let's go see them, okay, Sam?"

"Okay," Sam says, because his mother is asking, and because Dean is waiting, grinning, his cocksure brother, teeth white in the flashlight's beam. Sam slides his feet onto the floor. The tiles are slick and freezing against his bare soles, and his legs are rubbery. He'd have fallen if his mother didn't push herself under his arm, wrapping her arm around his waist.

The flashlight in her hand jiggles and bobs, its beam swooping across the dark room, sparkling light as it catches on glass and metal and polished tile. Unless that's the fireworks already going off.

"Come on, Sam," his mother says, taking a step, pulling him with her.

"Come on, Sammy," his brother echoes. The flashlight's beam swipes across him, casting his face in stark illumination—lips smirking, eyes solid black. He's holding the First Blade, not openly threatening, almost casual except for the whitening of his knuckles around its wrapped handle. _"You're going to miss all the fun."_

Dean raises the blade over Mary, whose head is down as she struggles to help Sam. She's not expecting this attack; she doesn't know what Dean became.

"Look out!" Sam shouts, pushes her away as the blade comes down. His mother staggers back, dropping the flashlight. It goes out. Off-balanced by the darkness and the shove, Sam catches himself on the bed, drags himself back upright. He's in no condition to fight, but he can't let this happen, can't let Dean do this. "Dean," he says, stretching out his hand, reaching blindly into the dark. "Where are you?"

"Where else would I be?" Dean snaps his fingers and the lights come back on—red lights, turning his pale skin bloody, though his eyes stay pitch black. There's a wailing, pulsing noise, or maybe that's the throbbing in Sam's head. "I'm here for you, Sammy," and it's like before, in the bunker. Except Dean is only a kid in a too-large jacket, and he's got the First Blade instead of a hammer, and their mother is beside Sam, calling his name, pulling at his arm.

Dean smirks at her. The red lighting makes it look like he has a mouthful of blood, though Sam is the only one who drinks that. "For you, and for Mommy dearest," Dean says, twirling the First Blade around in his hand. "Or would you like to do the honors again, Sammy?" He stops the blade, holds it out to Sam, handle-first. "Brother bonding time. I can hold her, and you can run her through. Like with Ruby. Or our first werewolf hunt together, remember that?"

"Sam," his mother says, her red-lit face drawn with fear as she looks up at Sam, her hands wrapped around his arm, not even glancing toward Dean. "Sammy, please—"

Sam sees when Dean decides to move. The black eyes are unreadable, but he sees the setting of Dean's jaw behind the smirk, the instant before he flips the blade around and lunges, all one smooth motion.

Sam acts faster, breaking free of his mother's hold to spin around towards her, putting his back between her and the First Blade as he grabs her arms, tries to pull her out of danger—

He's not sure what happens next. Her hands gripping back, struggling—then the room, the red light, all of it spins, flips upside down. Something slams hard into his back, his head, not the burning point of a knife's stab but a blunt impact. Pain explodes across his already bruised skull, brighter than any fireworks.

He's dreaming he's in the Impala, driving down a road so rough that every pothole bounces him off the seat, smacks his chin against the steering wheel, until he's bruised and sore. The radio is on, blasting static; as the car rattles he tries to adjust it, spinning the knob, but he can't get any station clearly. It's set to AM anyway, nothing coming through but talk, snatches of nonsense.

 _"—the hell happened?"_

 _"—and I just reacted; I didn't—how could I, to my own—"_

 _"—okay, it's okay, but we gotta get out of—"_

 _"—was confused, but I thought he recognized me—"_

 _"—got him, Cas, but we need you here, now—"_

A coolness brushes his brow, like a draft, or a fall of rain. Is the window down? Sam tries to turn to check, but his head is held immobile, gripped in powerful fingers. The cool flows from that tight clasp, soothing his aching skull, quelling the raging fever, if doing nothing to quench the thirst smoldering beneath it.

His eyes reel open. The blurry shape above him reluctantly slides into focus. It's Lucifer, in Castiel's vessel, peering down at him with Cas's blue eyes, turned murky brown by the red lighting.

When he speaks, he's pretending to be Cas, voice scraping even lower and rougher than usual. "Sam? Sam, can you hear me?"

"No," Sam says wearily. With the fever broken, he finds he's too exhausted to move, even to flinch away; his fear is distant, abstract, not provoking any adrenaline surge. Either Lucifer is only in his head, and therefore a harmless torment; or else he's real and he'll do what he wants to Sam.

"If you can't hear me, then what question are you saying no to?" Lucifer asks, in Cas's voice.

Except if Lucifer is real, then he's in Cas. Sam struggles to sit up, to grab one of the hands cradling his head, wrapping his fingers around Cas's wrist. "Get—get out of him," he says, staring into the wide eyes. "Leave him 'lone—"

Lucifer frowns. "What are you talking about, Sam?" and he's figured out how to imitate Cas's testy confusion, almost exactly, the angelic exasperation so accurate that it hurts, deep enough to penetrate the layers of fatigue Sam's buried under.

The bump on his head is no longer aching, even when he knocks it back against the floor. So he bites his cheek—the original laceration is healed over, but he clamps down until he tastes blood.

But the vision of Castiel doesn't waver or alter; Lucifer stays solid. Real, and Sam tries to shake his head, twisting against the archangel's secure grip. "No—no, Cas, how, how could you..."

"Sam?" Lucifer says, frown deepening as he puts his finger to the corner of Sam's mouth, to the drop of blood welling there from his cheek. He cups Sam's face, fingers pressing in; there's a tingle and then even that small clarifying wound is gone. Lucifer always was jealous of pain he didn't inflict himself. "Why?" The angel looks down at the drop of blood on his fingertips, rubs them together with his brow furrowing, then raises his stained fingers to his mouth. "This is..."

"Sam? Sammy, you back with us?"

Even as tired as he is, Sam's breath catches at that voice. He tries to turn toward it, rolling his eyes over, but his peripheral vision is blocked by Lucifer.

Then Dean comes around him, crouching on Sam's other side, across from the devil but not even looking at him. Allies, then; except Dean's eyes staring at Sam aren't black now, and he's not smirking, mouth instead set in a grim line.

" _Cristo_ ," Sam mutters, watching closely.

Dean flinches, though oddly his eyes stay clear. But then, a hallucination's under no obligation to obey the usual occult principles. The line of Dean's mouth warps, then curls up, though that tentative smile is still a far cry from demonic arrogance. He drops a hand to Sam's shoulder, clasps hard. "Just me in here, Sammy, and I'll give you any proof you want, soon as we're out of here."

Lucifer's imitation of Cas was already too much, but this—Sam can't breathe, his laboring lungs not pulling in enough air; he's suffocating, drowning on dry land.

"Hey—hey, Sammy, it's okay!" Dean's got both hands on him now, moving from shoulder to chest, cupping his cheek to cradling his head, anxiously seeking any injury to treat, any hurt to soothe. "We're hidden for now, safe; Ma—uh, a friend is keeping watch, so soon as we get you back on your feet—Cas, can you finish healing him up?"

"No," Lucifer says, with all of Cas's gravitas, somber tone practiced and polished until it's almost not surprising Dean doesn't notice the deception. "I've already healed him."

"So why does he look like crap on toast—c'mon, you got to have a little more juice—"

"It's not my power that's the issue," Lucifer says. "I've healed him as much as can be repaired. Besides, the greater damage isn't physical."

"Damage?" Dean blanches. "Like, the Trials? Is that—what'd they—"

"No, Dean," and Lucifer shakes his head solemnly, but Sam knows his serious demeanor must be camouflaging glee, that he can say this, that he can ruin this.

"Please," Sam tries to say, knowing it's useless and yet he can't stop himself, "don't—"

"It's demon blood," Lucifer says, dropping Cas's voice mockingly low. "Traces as strong as I've ever felt in him—as much as when he took in Lucifer, or more, though not now..."

There's a moment that Dean's face is just blank, uncomprehending—that Sam hopes perhaps he can't hear, can't understand; since Lucifer is real, while his brother is...

Then Dean's expression twists, the red light casting the deepened lines into a mask of rage, eyes darkening to nearly demon-black.

"Dean," Sam gasps, even knowing it's useless, that it's too late, "please—this—"

Dean's head jerks down, dark eyes glaring. His hand on Sam's shoulder squeezes tight enough to hurt and still Sam can feel it trembling with rage. Though Dean's voice is shockingly calm, as he asks, "Is he right, Sam? You drank the blood, and now you're jonesing?"

"I d-don't," and Sam has to swallow around his too-dry tongue, force his cracked lips to shape the words, "I don't—want to—but—"

The fury, the contempt, the disappointment—whatever Sam dreaded, this is worse than any of it: Dean drawing a breath, releasing it, and his expression flattens as he does. So there's no feeling left at all when he looks down at Sam, like Sam is nothing, not even worth hunting.

Dean rises from his crouch, pulls his pistol. "Please," Sam says, struggling to stand with him, at least to sit up. His teeth are chattering despite the sweat breaking across his brow, as he levers the sluggish hulk of his body off the floor on shaking arms. "I—I'm sorry, Dean, I—"

"Cas," Dean says, not even looking at Sam. "Whatever you can do, and then we'll call in—"

Lucifer nods, obedience veiling the scorn that must be there, and raises his hand. Sam tries to bat it away, tries to shove himself back, but even an ordinary human could easily overpower him now; he has no chance against the archangel. Lucifer's fingers touch his forehead—not as cold as they should be, only soothing cool. It washes over Sam, for all he tries to fight it. Tries to keep his eyes open, watching his brother, even though Dean has turned away and won't look back again, not at what Sam has become; but it could be his last chance—

His eyes slide shut in spite of himself, his body and mind both folding down into a sleep deeper than any drug could bring, deeper than any dream or even nightmare can follow.

* * *

 _tbc...  
_

 _Yes, continued; the story is most definitely not over...hope you're up for more!_


	8. Chapter 8

Sam wakes up thirsty, but not for water; starving, but not for any food. Without the cushion of the sedatives and other drugs, without the distraction of his now-healed bumps and bruises, his whole body aches with need. He's burning with it, scorched by the heat of a desert that only he knows, a drought that only he suffers.

A cold cloth is pressed over his forehead. It's not enough; the heat in him will boil it away. Will blister the gentle hand smoothing down the compress. Someone is singing, low and so out-of-tune that Sam only recognizes the song from the lyrics, _"Take a sad song and make it better..."_

When he opens his eyes, his mother is sitting by his head, smiling sweetly. She's wearing her white nightgown and it's soaked with blood, crimson spreading through the lace, and still she smiles down at him, one hand pressed to her slashed belly, the other resting over his forehead.

Sam squeezes shut his eyes, listens to her sing and tries not to flinch at the warm liquid dripping down from her comforting caress.

x x x

The fever's delirium erodes the last barriers between dreaming and delusions. Sometimes Sam hears his mother but sees Toni Bevell. Sometimes it's Dean's voice but their father's face. Gabriel opens his mouth and talks in Crowley's distinctive accent—and that could be real, a proper trickster's joke, if Gabriel hadn't died years ago.

Lucifer speaks from Azazel's host, and Dick Roman smirks behind Lucifer's old vessel, and Sam bites down on his cheek until he tastes iron.

There's a light shining above him, the sun of his private wasteland, piercing, blinding, and he tries to throw up his arms, tries to block out that damning brilliance. Then it's dark but he's bound again, tied down, trapped in sweltering confines; he twists and writhes until he fights his way free, finally lies panting on top of the tangled blankets.

Ruby comes to him again, but she looks like Amelia. Sam knows her anyway, from her smile, from the taste of her lips against his. _"Wouldn't this have been easier,"_ she asks him, _"if it had just been me; if you'd only ever betrayed your brother for me, instead of over, and over, and over..."_

He reaches for her, begging, desperate, but she's gone, was only ever empty air.

It feels real, when an arm around his shoulder props him up, when a bottle is put to his lips. He opens his mouth, drinks frantically, only to choke on the cold thin liquid, not what he wants, not what he needs. Feebly he tries to turn his head, push aside that useless offering.

It feels real, but then Dean is saying, "Hey—hey," his voice strained, hoarse like he's been talking for days, "you gotta drink something, Sammy, or I'll have to hook you up to the IV again. You don't have to finish it, just a bit, please—"

Sam relaxes, and the bottle returns to his lips—not glass, he realizes, but plastic. Not water inside, but sweeter, with just a little sour to leaven the cloying sugar. Lemon-lime Gatorade, his favorite when he's sick or hungover.

It's not enough to quench his thirst now, but he makes himself sip until his stomach starts to turn, until he's not sure he can keep any more down. Dean seems to realize, takes the bottle away.

The glaring sun now is dim, dying. The yellow light carves new lines in Dean's face, hollows out his cheeks and under his eyes, makes him look haggard, older than he should be.

A vision of a future that will never be; Sam's turn to be sent forward, though it's not a lesson but punishment, too late for him to do anything about it. Still, he works his moistened tongue to ask, "How long?"

Dean's jaw clenches, muscles twitching in his cheeks. The stubble there is getting thick enough to call a beard, if it were trimmed into shape. "Six weeks," he says. "Almost seven—I looked, we looked, we couldn't find you, we couldn't find a goddamn trace anywhere. It was a private plane, no record you'd even been taken out of the country—no clue, until Cas heard that prayer. I'm sorry, Sam, I'm so fucking—"

Six weeks is too short, not when Dean looks like he's aged years; but in a way it makes sense, equalized, a symbolic echo of the weeks Sam spent searching when Dean became the demon. If this Dean's eyes aren't black, then maybe it's Sam's that are; maybe that's why Dean is looking at him with such horror and fear and anger. Sam closes them, lids shuttering demon black. It's dark and he can't see Dean behind them, but maybe that's better. When there's only a voice it's easier for Sam to remember the truth, even if he's past perceiving it.

Someone—it looks like Dean, sounds like Dean—brings him pills—"They should bring the fever down, at least, probably won't put a dint in the rest, but I don't know if we can risk anything stronger...but it's better than nothing, right?" so Sam opens his mouth for the tablets to be placed on his tongue, little circles of bitterness until he obediently swallows them down with clear water, tasteless and heavy in his gut.

He lets Dean lay him back down on the mattress, lets Dean pull the blankets up over him. They're too warm, but the cozy texture of the flannel is familiar, like the blankets on his own bed.

Dean tucks those familiar blankets around him, snug and tight, tells him, "Go to sleep, Sammy," and it's like Sam is six years old again, and Dean is trying to get him to bed so he can sneak out to lift some candy bars or practice shooting the gun Dad leaves him, that Sam's not supposed to know about.

And that doesn't feel real at all, none of it; but Sam is long past caring.

x x x

Sam's still thirsty when he next wakes up, and not for any water or sports drink. The clearness of his head only sharpens the desire, or maybe it's that need which bring lucidity.

He's not in the Letters' medical ward anymore. The give of the mattress under him is different, soft cotton sheets instead of starched stiff linen. And there are no cuffs around his wrists, nothing stopping him from throwing off the blankets wrapped around him, strangling tight.

No one stops him, either; there's no one in the room with him now. A different room than any he's been held in yet, the walls of brick and cinderblock. The mattress he lies on is spread out on the concrete floor, next to a pile of books and a few bottles of Gatorade and water. A taller bottle stands behind them, half full—his vision's too blurry to make out the label, but it's whiskey by the color.

Everything is softly lit, the only illumination from a lamp in the corner, sitting on the floor and plugged into the wall. The shade is orange, rectangular, like the fixtures in the bunker library.

This room could be in the bunker. If Lucifer was only in his head after all, then maybe Sam's been brought to a new facility. Toni had mentioned another chapterhouse, in Vienna, maybe?

In which case the security on him might not be so tight. Sam slides himself off the mattress, clambers to his feet with the help of the wall. Fully upright, he sways, gulps down rising nausea. His tongue feels thick and swollen in his mouth. What had Toni said before, that the symptoms weren't just withdrawalm but dehydration?

Or was that only a hallucination? But there might be something to it either way. With difficulty Sam crouches, grabs one of the plastic water bottles. His shaky hands make the lid a challenge, but he gets it open, drinks deeply.

The wetness is soothing on his tongue, but his stomach protests, wrenches and forces the water up again, sweet turned acidly sour. Sam drops the bottle, curls over retching, the concrete bruising on his knees.

"Come now, Mr. Winchester, we both know that's not what you want," Aloysius says.

Sam jerks up his head. The old man of Letters is even more hunched, one arm in a sling, tweed jacket open on his white shirt. His other hand clutches a glass jar, open. He tilts it in Sam's direction, spilling a few drops of the red liquid within.

Sam lunges for it, only to crash back to his knees, victim to his spinning head. Aloysius hobbles a step back—he's learned caution. "Patience," he counsels. "In good time, and as needed."

"Needed—" Sam's voice is hoarse, scratches his raw throat. He reaches out, his hand trembling. "I need—"

"That's not in question," the old man says. "No, the question here is only, what will you do for it?"

Sam scrapes his parched tongue over his cracked lips. "What—what do you want me to do?"

 _"Nothing."_ But it's not Aloysius who answers.

Sam jerks, turning instinctively—expecting nothing, but he's not as lucid as he feels, because he can see Dean. Not clearly, blurred in the room's dimness; but standing there only a few feet away, indistinct pale face turned down toward Sam. But his voice is achingly clear, low and rough. _"Nothing, Sam—you don't have to do anything."_

He's right. The way only Dean can be—could be. Not always, no more than Sam. But when he was—Sam could trust his brother, better than he could trust himself; could rely on him, when the entire rest of the world was unreliable. _Make this stone number one._ He'd only survived before because of Dean.

Now—now he doesn't really care if he survives. But he knows what Dean would want, if his brother could be here. Sam shakes his head. Pulls himself up sitting, turning away from Aloysius. "No," he says. "Forget it."

If Aloysius answers, Sam doesn't hear him; he's listening to Dean instead, to Dean saying, voice stretched and strained, _"Forget what, Sammy?"_

Sam shakes his head, and regrets it when everything swoops around him. He feels drunk, past the tipping point, when the buzz deteriorates to a dizzy stupor. His stomach turns and he heaves again, doesn't manage to bring up even bile.

Dean is crouched next to him, arm around his shoulders. _"Sorry, Sam—just had to grab something to eat, I thought you were still out—I'm sorry I was gone—"_

"Yeah," Sam says wearily, "I'm sorry you're gone, too."

 _"But I'm here now,"_ Dean says, in a tone that rises, light, like he's trying to make a joke, only Sam doesn't get it. _"C'mon, let's get you back to bed. Let you sleep this off."_

It's fortunate the mattress is laid out on the floor; Sam doesn't have the strength left to climb into a real bed. Even with Dean helping, as much as any delusion could. The demon power in him could fling Sam across the room, but it's quiescent now.

He crumples onto the mattress, which sinks gently under him, foam molding comfortably around his throbbing body. It seems to sink further, when Dean sits next to him. Sam, on his stomach, turns his head enough to see his brother, back propped against the concrete wall, legs stretched out on the mattress, parallel to Sam. Close enough to touch, but Sam doesn't try.

Dean does—rests a hand on his shoulder, heavy, bearing down. Not like he's trying to trap Sam but like he's holding him in place, as if to keep Sam from rolling off the mattress onto the floor, though he's sunk in too deeply to budge. Every breath Sam takes, his shoulders rise against that pressure, the manifestation lingering, firm and present, even after his eyes close.

Dean is talking, quietly, a mumbling ramble that Sam struggles to follow, _"—long to find you, geeze, man, I thought—everything had gone so well, it was freaking awesome; I should've known, every time you think things are looking up, that's right when life decides to kick you in the beanbag—"_

Sam doesn't mean to, but he drifts, carried along by that familiar course, losing the meaning of the words in the comfort of the sound. The thudding of his heart against his ribs gradually subsides, subsumed by the soft murmur. His head hurts and he presses his fists to his temples, trying to grind it back. Then there are other fingers combing through his hair, blunt nails against his scalp loosening a little the red-hot iron band closed around his forehead.

It's enough that he almost forgets—almost; and then he remembers. Catches his breath and opens his eyes. Blue before them, faded jeans, nothing any of the Men of Letters would wear. His vision is too clear, now, too vivid; he can count every stitch along the seam.

"You're still awake?" and it's rasping and worn but it sounds so convincingly like Dean would sound, after a long night out at a bar or up researching. "You should try to get some sleep."

"Tried," Sam says, coughing around his scorched throat. "Can't. Too thirsty."

"You want some water? Gatorade? OJ? Beer?"

"No," Sam says. "Not...I don't want anything."

There is a pause long enough that Sam would think he's alone again, except for the phantom warmth beside him, the hand on his head. Finally Dean says, "It's gonna be okay, Sammy."

"Wish you'd stop that," Sam says.

The fingers gently scratching the base of his head still. "Stop what?"

"' _Sammy_ ,'" Sam says. "Don't call me that."

He nudges back his head, deeper into that comforting touch; the fingers hesitate, then tentatively resume. "Okay—okay," Dean says, "it's Sam, right," and he chuckles, a wet, stuttering sound. "I didn't think you still...you got it, Sam."

He thought it would be better, but it's almost worse, somehow, the way Dean says it, so carefully. Sam swallows, curls his head in, forehead pressed to the threadbare denim beside him. It's warm, solid; it feels so real he shudders, breathes through his nose around the sob building in his throat.

"Sam?" Dean says, even more carefully, his hand shifting down, callused palm pressed over the back of Sam's neck. "Sam, what's wrong? You gonna be sick, I got a bucket—"

"You wouldn't," Sam says, "he wouldn't—wouldn't call me that, not now, not if you were really here. If you really knew—if he knew, he wouldn't be here. He'd have locked me up—I'm a bloodsucking freak, and he'd have made sure I couldn't hurt anyone else—but he's not here. He'll never be here. He's gone, he's gone, I killed him, I killed my brother," and he can't breathe around the words, can't stop the catching in his throat. He drags up his arms, buries his face in his crossed elbows but can't force the tears back into his eyes; he's so thirsty and his mouth is so dry, but every last drop in him is drawn out anyway.

And the whole time he imagines Dean's hands on his shaking shoulders, imagines Dean's voice in his ears, saying, "Sam—I'm here, I'm not dead, I'm here—you didn't, you'd never, you didn't—Sammy, I'm right here—"

* * *

 _tbc..._

 _Posted this chapter a few days ago on AO3 but then ffnet was being buggy and hiding my reviews, and I had to wait until they came back. They seem to be working now, though! *fingers crossed*_

 _Gnine (the aforementioned sister responsible for this thing) did lovely fanart for this chapter; you can find it on my tumblr idontneedasymbol (click the "fic" link in the blog description at the top)._


	9. Chapter 9

_So season 12 didn't go this way at all, but after getting so far in, I still wanted to finish this story. I have the first draft completed, so the next few chapters should be up before season 13 starts. (Not that it matters anyway given that it's now firmly a canon-divergent AU, but given it's been over a year since I started posting this and I meant to have it done before the last season premiere, that deadline is a matter of authorial pride.)_

 _My greatest thanks to everyone who's expressed interest in more of this story despite it straying so far afield from how the show went; AU or not, I hope it entertains!_

* * *

 _"What even can I do to you now?"_ Zachariah's contemptuous voice maybe is amused, or else annoyed. With his eyes shut, Sam can't see the angel's expression to tell. _"A coronary, sepsis, gangrene, leprosy_ — _nothing would be as bad as what's already happening to you. As bad as what you did to yourself..."_

Sam ignores him. He strains to listen instead for Dean's voice, far over his head, saying, nonsensically, _"_ — _you just landed in Detroit? Are you going to drive, or_ — _layover, okay_ — _this evening? Great._ — _Yeah, he's, uh...he's resting._ — _Not exactly, but._ — _Cas has? Of course he has._ — _Okay, right, when you get here._ — _Yeah, I, uh...me, too. Can you put Cas on for a sec?"_

There's a momentary silence, nothing to drown out Zachariah's mocking, _"I shouldn't have even bothered with you crawling hairless worms; left alone, you'll manage more evil than I could ever talk you into..."_

While somewhere further away and hard to hear, Dean says, " _Uh-huh_ — _I keep thinking we're through the worse of it, and then the damn fever spikes again. Maybe you can_ — _Right, I get that. But_ — _Anyway, he wants to see you, man. He's said some stuff about_ — _Yeah, I know. Drive fast; I'm leaving the lights on."_

 _"...And really, let's be honest, whatever I do, it's so much more satisfying,"_ Zachariah gloats, _"to just watch you destroy yourself, and everything you love along with_ — _"_

But Dean killed Zachariah, years ago, when Dean was still really alive. Sam doesn't have to listen to this. He bites down on the inside of his cheek until he tastes iron from the torn flesh. He's getting used to that spark of pain, and it's only so effective anyway. But if he keeps his eyes shut, it distracts him enough to lose track of Zachariah's monologue.

Eventually Anna's softer voice replaces Zachariah's, but that's all right. All she can threaten Sam is to destroy him, scatter his atoms across the cosmos, and Sam doesn't know how bad that would be. Isn't sure that she hasn't already begun; he feels stretched, drawn out molecule-thin. He's dissolving into hazy, unfocused agony, sublimating from solid body to formless air, and maybe if he's dispersed enough he won't congeal back into his flesh with its thirst and need and grief.

"—Sam!"

It's a shock when his being coalesces again, abruptly. Sam registers the motion, the rush of air as his body is slammed backwards. His shoulders crash against the brick, and the blow jars him fully conscious.

Dean is here, watching him. Dean with one hand raised, palm out, fingers spread. He stands six feet from Sam, holding him in place, pinned to the wall like a beetle on corkboard by invisible power.

"No," Sam says, shaking his head, the back of his scalp scraping against the brick. "You can't be—this room's warded against demons—" From this new vantage point he can see the devil's trap etched on the floor, just like in the dungeon back in the bunker. The mattress half-covers it, but that shouldn't matter, not when Dean is standing within its circle.

But Dean just cocks his head. "Who said anything about demons?" he says.

His eyes aren't black; they're empty, colorless void. He's holding the First Blade, but there's no Mark on his arm, bared by his gray t-shirt. "I'm not that pathetic black-eyed drunk," Dean says. "This is who I really am. What I was always meant to be."

Nothing on Dean's arm—but showing just under the loose neck of the t-shirt, at the edge of his collarbone, there's a small red wound, open and bleeding, dark crimson soaking through the shirt's cotton. Three short gashes.

Sam knows that Mark, knows who it belongs to. "No," he says, "No, Amara's dead, she's gone—"

"You really believe that?" Dean asks. He raises the Blade, presses its toothed tip to the Mark's lacerations, so the bloodstain spreads through his grey shirt. "You're sure that when it came down to it, this isn't what I chose? Offered all those souls stuffed inside me as a tribute, and gave myself to what I always wanted."

The panic clawing up Sam's throat abruptly drops away. "Yes," he says. "I'm sure."

"You haven't even seen the sun, all this time," Dean says, sneering, though his eyes stay clear and hollow. "You don't know what could be happening out there."

"I don't need to see," Sam says. "I don't need proof—I knew my brother."

"'Knew'?" Dean steps closer. He moves like he's on a hunt, every motion smooth and calculated; cautious, for all the power forcing Sam against the wall.

Sam meets his empty gaze. "The Darkness is gone," he says. "Along with God. It's all over."

"But that isn't what happened." Dean frowns. "Did you hear anything I told you before, Sammy? That isn't how it went down with Amara..." Another step closer, and for a moment Sam almost thinks he sees green showing in the void of his brother's eyes.

But Dean raises his hand, and Sam is lifted, smashed back against the wall. He ducks his head to avoid a direct blow, but between the bruising pain of the brick against his shoulders and the air knocked from his lungs, he loses track of what's around him, real or otherwise.

There's shouting that might be him, might be someone else. Hands grabbing him, dragging him back. He sees black eyes, white eyes, red, yellow. Then the nothingness that is worst of all.

Sam feels when the power holding him suddenly lets go; but the grasping hands do not. He struggles, without the strength to seriously fight back, but at least one of his blind swings connects by smarting of his knuckles, the grunt of pain.

There's a voice in his ear, "Sammy, it's okay—you're okay. The damn blood was tossing you around, but it seems to be over for now—"

Sam is restrained again, manacles around his wrists, a strap across his chest, holding him down. Bound and helpless, still the Men of Letters' prisoner. He must be crazy, to ever think otherwise. Eventually they'll resume their tests, with the demons, and the mirrors, and the blood...

He surrenders, goes limp. His head falls back against a surface softer than stone, more solid than a pillow; warm and moving, rising and falling.

It takes him some time to identify that rhythm as breathing. Longer to realize it's not his own.

"You back with me?" Dean asks eventually, his voice rumbling through his chest under Sam's ear.

Sam breathes out—just a release of air, but Dean must take it as a reply, because he goes on, "You want anything? To eat, or...?

Sam's exhalation this time is a sigh. "I'm good."

Dean snorts. "Yeah, no—even for you, that's pushing it." He breathes, up and down and up and down. Finally says, "Sam, before—you get that you couldn't have killed me, don't you? Even if everything had gone according to plan and that soul-bomb had actually gone off, that wasn't on you. You know that, right?"

Sam tries to turn away, but the band across his chest holds him in place. More secure than the leather straps before—a warm, solid arm, latched around him, pulling him back. Squeezing a little tighter, as Dean says, "I know you're confused, with the fever and the withdrawal and everything, but—"

"Doesn't matter," Sam says.

"It matters," Dean growls, low enough that Sam can feel it as much as hear it. "You need to be fighting this with everything you got; some stupid, pointless blame game is just going to weigh you down—" and it's ironic, that the Dean Sam imagines now would say that so easily, when his brother had been burdened with more conscience than anyone Sam ever knew, more than any man could reasonably survive.

But then, Dean never fought for his own survival like he would for Sam's. "It was my choice," the imaginary Dean is saying. "Save the universe as we know it—what else was I gonna do? Just like you'd have done, if you could've. It wasn't your fault that you weren't her favorite."

"No," Sam says. After a year of silent guilt it's almost a relief to say it, if only to a delusion. "It was my fault _you_ were. I released Amara; I should've been the one to put her back. It was my responsibility—"

" _Our_ responsibility," Dean says. "I was the one with the damn Mark—lock and key, remember? The Darkness was on both of us—and that's how we fixed it, together. You came up with the plan and I executed it, that's how we work best, right, Sam? Brains and brawn—except it turned out that wasn't what we needed, not this time. But I wouldn't have been there at all, wouldn't have been able to save a damn thing, if you hadn't figured out what we had to do—"

"Yeah," Sam says, and shudders. "And if I hadn't—"

"If you hadn't, then we'd all be gone now. Hell, there wouldn't be a _now_ —there'd be nothing. Instead of everything!"

"Everything," Sam says, "except you."

Dean doesn't answer for a long moment. Then he cups his hand around Sam's head. Pushes down, gently, to press Sam's ear against his chest. Vibrating as he says, "You hear that? My heart's still beating. I'm here. I'm still here, Sammy, I swear."

That thumping pulse is loud against Sam's ear, too fast but steady, constant. It sounds so real, and Sam knows he shouldn't—knows this delusion is no more real than a djinn's fantasies, and maybe as dangerous.

But he can't help himself. He closes his eyes, lets himself listen. If he was drifting before, now he's weighed down, anchored by that slowing rhythm. Better here than anywhere, even than that formless everywhere—here, where he can believe, for a little while, that he's in the bunker. That he's lying on Dean's memory foam mattress in the dungeon with the devil's trap on the floor.

That Dean is here, alive and well and holding him. Carrying him from the fire that would burn him to only smoke and ash.

* * *

But the fire gets hotter, and hotter still. Sam can feel his skin tightening, stretching until it cracks. His lips burn with it, and worse when there's liquid forced against them—not what he needs, not anything that can quench this thirst—it's acid, poison, boiling, stinging. Punishment. "It's just water, Sam, you gotta drink something," says a voice that can't be there, and Sam wrenches his head away, shoving back the bottle to spit out the sour, searing liquid.

There's a heavy covering over his eyes, coarse cloth that burns too, or else it freezes; Sam is shivering under it, then trying to push its stifling heat aside, though it keeps returning, draped over his face again however many times he throws it off.

Dean is talking—only a mutter, hoarse and hard to make out. The hollow voice of the Darkness's knight, cursing, _"Damn it_ — _damn_ you _, get your scrawny ass back here and fix this! I know you can, you cleaned him up fine before, and this time_ — _this wasn't any damn destiny, it was just those assholes_ — _and I would've been there with him, we would've faced Team British Bastards together, if I hadn't been solving your stupid family feud. You owe me_ — _it's the least you can do._

 _"Come on, dude, you said this whole thing's our responsibility now, me and him_ — _both of us; you sure as hell wouldn't be trusting it just to me. You know me_ — _you_ wrote _me. I'm not doing it without him, you know that. I can't. Thirty seconds, that's all it'll take, and then you can get back to your cosmic road trip and we'll get back to saving the planet..._

 _"Okay_ — _okay, fine, be that way. Fuck you very much, too. Amara, hey, are you listening? I could use a hand here, since your dumbass brother isn't stepping up. You come and help_ — _I mean, help again, and, uh, thanks for that, in case it didn't count when I told you in that dream_ — _really, thank you._

 _"But this_ — _this is even more...No? No go...okay. Was worth a shot..._

 _"Sam_ — _it's just us, Sam. Same as usual. The big guys screw the world and we're left holding the bag. But we're going to do it_ — _you're going to do it. You'll get through this. Just keep holding on, and it'll get better, it has to. Karma, right? That's what you said before_ — _when was that, only a few months ago? We still deserve a break_ — _you've got one coming. To hell with all of them, you're owed it. You hear me, Sammy?"_

"...Hear you," Sam says, though Dean is sounding farther away with every word, like they're on two rafts, drifting apart in diverging currents. The mattress under Sam is rocking in the waves, seasick undulation.

"Sam? Sam—shit, you're burning up again—I gotta get more ice, I'll be right back—"

He can smell brine—or is that smoke?—hear the crashing surf—or is that the roar of flames?

The Man of Letters Aloysius is back, standing over Sam, staring down at him—but his eyes are white instead of brown or black. His laugh is Lilith's, shrill and twisted, when Sam tries to turn away. "You think you can hide your face from me? Hide anything from me?" she demands. "What else would you look at—your brother? You mean, the one you turned your back on, to kill me?

"Where do you think I went, once you murdered me? Where does any demon go? Those of us that are beyond mere monsters, where do we all end up? Maybe I'm here with him now, with your brother. Taking my vengeance out on him, for all eternity..."

And for a single terrible moment Sam wishes it could be true, that Dean might still be somewhere, even in her clutches, even in eternal torment, as long as he's still—

"No!" Sam gasps out, "No, Dean—Dean is—"

Aloysius grabs his shoulders, forces them down into the mattress. He's strong, the demon's unnatural power; it's useless to struggle against him. "Relax, Sam," the man of Letters says, in a voice not his own. Nor Lilith's—deep and focused. "Dean is here. And me. But you must rest."

The damp towel is settled over his face again, covering his eyes. Under its cool pressure, sweat breaks across his brow—not chill but feverish hot. Sam shudders, shivers. Unable to resist the grip holding him down, his body relaxes, muscles unclenching in agonizing inches as his laboring lungs and thumping heart gradually slow.

He can't move. Can't see anything, just blackness behind the cloth over his eyes. Not Aloysius over his bed now—that voice is Castiel's. Not Lucifer; or maybe that's only because Sam can't see his cold eyes, his smirk.

But it sounds like Cas, an extra burr to his rasp, all angelic impatience and aggravation, saying, "This is all I can do."

"Hey, this is the best he's been since we got back. Calmest, anyway," And that's Dean—not a demon, not Marked, just his brother; and Sam's mind relaxes like his body, relinquishes its fight for meaning through the delirium. "Thanks, Cas. Great timing."

A pause; then Cas says, "What about you, Dean?"

"What about me?"

"You didn't have that black eye when you departed. Did Crowley..."

"The what...?" A grunt of pain, then, "Dammit. Quick, you gotta heal me, before Sam sees it."

"What happened?"

"I was stupid, wasn't watching myself. The demon blood's been flinging him around, and even when he's awake he's half out of his head. I should've been ready for it."

"Perhaps you would be more ready if you'd slept in the last sixty hours."

A snort. "Yeah, probably—hey, can you fix that, too, while you're at it? A little heavenly pick-me-up?"

"Dean, I am an angel, not a coffeepot."

"Then can you turn a coffeepot on, at least? Or ask—"

"You don't need caffeine; you need rest. I'll stay with Sam. You can get something to eat, and talk with your—"

"Yeah—yeah, all right, I'll go fill her in, and grab a bite—"

"And a shower."

"...Fine, then—"

"And then sleep."

"Nah, I'm good."

"You're not. And while she may not feel that it's her place to insist—"

"Hold on, did she—"

"I do, and I will. Sam is sleeping now as at is. And I'll be here." Another pause. "Unless... you don't trust me to watch over him?"

"No—dammit, no, Cas, we talked about this, it wasn't your fault—"

"So you do trust me?"

"Okay—okay! You win, stop looking so smug about it. But if Sam wakes up before I do, you come get me, pronto."

"After you—"

"You don't get it, Cas. I need to be here—Sammy, all these weeks, he didn't know, he thought I was dead. And damn it, this is way too much like before, when I went to Hell, and that bitch got him hooked—"

"Dean...do you think this is why Sam started drinking the blood now?"

"What? No—hell no, Sam didn't choose to drink it. You saw his wrists, back at the compound, before you worked your mojo—those sons of bitches had to tie him down to force it into him. And I bet he spat it out into their faces. But once they got enough in him...I should've been there, found him, before it got that far—"

Cas heaves a sigh. "This wasn't your fault, either."

"No, it's those British assholes. But I couldn't be there before—I have to be here now, Cas. So he knows I'm here—that I'm even me. He's been so out of it, half the time he takes me for one of the bastards who did this to him. And the rest of the time..."

"And you're thinking that if you're also delirious from sleep deprivation, you might have a better chance of convincing Sam what's real?"

"Fine—fine! I'll take five. But the minute, the second he wakes up—"

"When Sam wakes up, I know what to do," Cas says, calm and assured.

It still takes a few minutes and more reluctant grumbling, while Sam lies quietly still, listening to Dean's dragging footsteps, to the heavy slide and clank of the dungeon door.

Then there is only silence, except his own breathing, for a long moment.

When Cas finally moves, it's deliberate, the shifting rustle of his trench coat louder than it needs to be, like a cleared throat. "Are you resting comfortably?" the angel asks.

"Yes," Sam says. He doesn't open his eyes; he doesn't want to see Lucifer's smirk on Cas's familiar face.

"I can bring down the fever, temporarily," Cas says. "But not much else. I'm sorry, Sam."

Without the fever's confusion, the thirst is worse, the need rising steadily. Sam swallows, scraping his parched throat. His voice is hoarse with it, as he says, "It's okay, Cas."

He's awake—Cas knows he's awake, yet he's not getting Dean. Says nothing about him, and that makes Sam wonder if maybe this is real. If maybe Cas is actually here—if maybe Sam himself is. "Where?" he asks.

Even with his eyes still closed, he can practically hear Cas cock his head. "Where are you, or were you before?" He doesn't wait for Sam to clarify, answers himself, "You were being held in a facility in the United Kingdom. You're in Lebanon now, in the bunker's dungeon."

"Closest thing to a panic room," Sam says.

"It is...necessary. For safety." Whose, Cas doesn't specify. "Until the demon blood is out of your system..."

"It's okay," Sam says again.

"No," Cas says, "it's not," and Sam has known the angel long enough to be able to distinguish real wrath from his usual frustration with humanity in general and Winchesters in particular.

Sam rolls onto his side, curling away from that accusation. Starts to say, "I didn't—" but stops himself. What he intended, what he didn't—it's long past when any of that could matter.

"Sam?" Cas says, and the anger is strangely gone from his voice. From his hand as it falls on Sam's shoulder, a heavy, meaningful grip—Cas never does anything without purpose.

It feels real, undeniable. Even when Sam bites down on his cheek until he tastes stinging blood, it doesn't waver, the grip that pulled both Dean and Sam himself up from the Pit.

There would be nothing left of Dean for the angel to take hold of. But maybe this really is Cas. Holding onto Sam now, for all his sins. Years ago he'd threatened to stop Sam from using those powers, by any means; but the judgment he casts now is only his own, not Heaven's. And it's not falling on Sam, at least not yet.

Sam reaches up, tugs the folded washcloth off his face. He blinks back the ice water on his lashes to focus on Cas's face, frowning, blue eyes intent on him.

Sam tries to smile, and Cas tries to smile back. "I'm glad you're here, man," Sam says, except that sounds wrong. Selfish, like it's only good for him that Cas should be here. "I mean—when Toni banished you, I didn't—I'm glad you weren't hurt."

Cas's fingers tighten around his shoulder, almost bruising. "I should've been ready to defend—if I'd seen enough to identify her, that we could've found you sooner..."

Sam almost asks who 'we' is, but stops himself in time. He doesn't really want to know. It could be other angels, or hunters. Or maybe Rowena had gotten into the habit of helping. Sam doesn't want the answer, when whoever it was, his brother can't be one of them.

His throat is so dry it's throbbing, the need cresting, breaking over him, leaving him gasping and quaking, fists clutching spasmodically at the mattress sheets. And still Cas holds on, not drawing back from that proof of his offense. Saying instead, "Sam, if there's anything else I can do—"

It's weakness—but then he's weak, weak enough to have broken already, so that it's almost with no shame that he asks, "Could you make me sleep?" because some of his dreams are nightmares but some are not. And Dean might be in some of them.

Cas sighs, though there's no clear judgment in his voice when he says, "I can try—it's difficult, with the blood. I'm more likely to just knock you out, and your mind needs rest now, more than oblivion." But he settles his hand over Sam's face, his palm warm after the towel's ice water, pressed over his eyes.

The wave of lassitude is welcome, if not by all of Sam. The blood inside him resists, charged, writhing under his skin and through his veins, making him want to move, shove back, strike out. He's trembling for it, fighting the impulse to cast off that too-heavy hand. To ball up his fist and slam it into Castiel's dour, disapproving face—like he could know what Sam needs now, like he could understand a fraction of this, without a soul in him to really feel anything—as if this pretense of angelic compassion could fool anyone—

Sam's teeth are gritted, but maybe some of those poisonous words escape through them; or maybe what he actually says is just _Please, please, please_ —

Either way, Cas mutters, "All right, then," and his hand burns hot as the invitation becomes a demand—Sam's awareness pushed back, falling away, not into sleep but deeper, beyond any voices or dreams or illusions, cruel or kind.

* * *

 _tbc..._


	10. Chapter 10-11

**Chapter 10**

"I'm getting pretty freaking tired of waking up in a dungeon," Sam says.

"Maybe you should stop passing out, then," Dean suggests, tone dead serious until Sam rolls his eyes, and then Dean smirks, red eyes gleaming.

Cas was nowhere in sight when Sam opened his eyes. But Dean was here, sitting on the dungeon floor as he fiddled with his phone, back to the wall, one leg stretched out so his boot's toe tapped the mattress Sam lay on. He was wearing the same red and blue plaid from the cemetery, before he went to face Amara, and Sam suffered a brief, piercing stab of hope, that this could be, not a vision, but a ghost.

Except that the dungeon is protected against spirits. Even if there could have been anything left to linger, after.

And when Sam sits up, Dean puts down the phone and lifts his head to show his eyes—blood-red, ready to bargain.

But his grin at Sam is only a little false, only a little forced. Almost believable, if Sam could let himself buy it.

Sam really is sick of these walls, the artificial glow of the lamps. But Cas had done what he could, and Sam is grateful for it. He's gone that much longer now without the blood. Has stayed human, for however many hours he lay unconscious.

"It's been almost nine hours," Dean supplies, and he turns his head to glower toward the door. "Don't know if you were out for all of it, though—Cas didn't wake me until a little while ago. Anyway, how you feeling now?"

Sam's head is pounding and his body aches, the bruised stiffening of the flu; he feels more exhausted than rested. "All right," he says.

Dean narrows his demon eyes. "You want to try that again, for real?"

"I am," Sam says, honestly. "It's better than it was."

Dean's smile gets a little broader, white teeth showing. "Cravings letting up?"

Sam hesitates, then shakes his head, running his dry tongue over his chapped lips.

Dean presses a hand over Sam's forehead. "Fever's still pretty high." Red eyes or not, he hasn't demanded a price yet, so Sam closes his eyes, leans into that cool, callused palm. Dean doesn't pull back, his hand stabilizing Sam; but his voice is rough, annoyed. "And you look like you went ten rounds with Ali and a wendigo tag-team."

"But I've got a bed I'm not tied down to," Sam says.

"Point."

"And I'm not fighting any demons."

"No, we'll hold off on the steel cage matches for at least a couple days," Dean agrees.

"And Cas is here."

"That he is. And me, too."

"Mm-hmm," Sam mumbles, noncommittally.

"...You know I'm here, right, Sammy?" Dean says, delicately, like a man balancing on one foot over a chasm. "That you're not seeing things—it's me, alive."

Sam opens his eyes, meets his brother's. Dean has blinked them back to green, but the crimson cast lingers. "It would be great if you were," Sam says.

Dean groans, more irritated than shocked. "Dammit, I knew it...so what can I do? What'll it take? There's gotta be something, some way to prove to you that it's really me."

Sam almost smiles. Dean can lie about being almost anyone, but he's never been a salesman. "'Fraid not. Anything I can think of for you to do, I could imagine you doing, so..."

Dean sinks his head into his hands. "Goddammit, Sam, if you're going to be off your rocker, why can't you commit? Just like last time—you're way too rational about being completely nuts."

"Umm, sorry?"

"Don't be sorry, just be crazy! If you're going to be seeing things anyway, why not try believing in some of them?"

"I do," Sam says. "Given how I feel, I doubt I've been given any more blood, and I don't remember being interrogated, so I'm willing to believe that maybe I did get away from the Men of Letters. Maybe I am in the bunker, even; that's been pretty consistent."

"And I haven't been?" Dean asks, low and pained, almost convincing.

"My brother never was a crossroads demon," Sam points out.

"You think I'm a..." Dean blinks, eyes switching from green to red and back like some malevolent Christmas ornament. "If that's what you're seeing now—then test me! I've seen you bite your cheek, I know what you're doing. If that'll prove what's really here—" He reaches for Sam's hand.

The scar is almost faded, long past the point of pain; but it's the principle, the reflex—Sam pulls his hand back, tucks it under his other arm. "No," he says. "It doesn't really work anyhow, not with these visions. But I wouldn't do it anyway. Not for this."

Dean looks as baffled as if he pulled his .45's trigger and got a burst of confetti. "Why not?"

"You know why." The headache is spiking, nauseating; Sam shuts his eyes against it. He doubts he could throw up—he genuinely can't remember the last time he ate anything, and whatever liquid he's kept down has been sucked up by his parched and desperate cells.

He slumps back, expecting cold concrete, but hits a pillow instead, hastily tucked behind his shoulders. Sam leans into that softness, almost smiles. "So what's the price for this?" he asks. Kind of joking, kind of not. "The going rate on my soul can't be that much, these days."

Dean doesn't answer. Sam slits his eyes to check, but Dean is still here. He's sitting on the edge of the mattress, shoulders curved away, curled in. "What would you give..." he mutters.

"What?" Sam asks.

"What would you give," Dean repeats, "if you could have your brother back?" He twists his head back toward Sam. He's smiling, sharp and hard under the crimson eyes. "What would you give, to really have him here?"

Sam's stomach is so knotted already, it's hard to tell if the thought makes him any sicker. "That's not a deal you could deliver on, even if you were real."

"But I'm real, Sammy." Dean with those red eyes reaches out toward him. Sam shies back, and Dean yanks back his own hand, fast, like he's flinching from a fire. "I'm real!"

His voice cracks, crackles. His eyes are tongues of scarlet flames. The room is pulsing, walls swelling out and sinking in like the ribs of a breathing giant. The lines of the devil's trap throb in the peripheries of Sam's vision, in time with the hammering in his temples.

A damp towel wraps over his face again, smothering his eyes—burning against his skin, and then freezing. He presses his head back against the pillow as he measures seconds in breaths. Someone pushes a plastic bottle into his hands, the cap off, sour, lukewarm water to wash down the bitter spots of pills on his tongue. There's a voice—voices, speaking his name, shouting other names.

"Sam," Ruby says, whispering in his ear. "Just hold on, Sam, it won't be much longer," and she puts her hand over his mouth, over his nose, so he can smell her skin, can smell the blood pumping underneath. He bares his teeth, tries to bite down, but there's nothing—there's nothing there at all; he's finally alone, when he manages to open his eyes.

* * *

"So here's the thing—you're not getting better," Dean says. His eyes are green now, instead of red or black. But as he crouches by Sam, his face keeps changing in the lamplight, shadows moving across it to hollow his cheeks, turn his smile into a forced grimace. "It's been days now, and every time it looks like the fever's breaking..."

"The effects are worsening, instead of diminishing," Cas says. He's standing next to Dean, and Sam's not sure where to look. Whether it's rude to Cas, to look at Dean, when he's not really there. But then, maybe Cas isn't really here, either. Isn't shaking his head, saying, "The progression isn't like the last time we witnessed this."

The last time was after confronting Famine, in Bobby's panic room. Sam's memories of then are hazy—screaming for them to let him out, for them to keep him in; to help him, to leave him alone.

Dean's jaw is clenched. "Your temperature's hit a hundred and ten—or more, that's as high as the damn thermometer goes," he says. "You—you should be dead, Sam."

Should be, but he's not, and Sam cringes back from that truth, like he can escape the damning thunder of his own heartbeat thudding against his skull. Proof of life that shouldn't be.

"Your body can't take this," Dean says. "Something's gotta give, if this keeps up—your heart or your brain or—it's demon blood, Sam. There's a lot we didn't know about it—about what it could do. They've been doing research, Cas and...anyway, turns out our library's got some books on it, and this," he waves at Sam, "the withdrawal—it's not just a chemical dependency. It's more than just cravings or whatever."

Sam could have told him that much. How much more it was. But the twist of Dean's mouth isn't disgust at Sam's weakness but something else. "What do you mean?" Sam asks.

"Those powers—yanking out the demons," Dean says. His voice is steady but his face is afraid. "No one's meant to be able to do that. It's way more than your run-of-the-mill psychic gifts. Using that kind of power does damage, to, like, everything. The nosebleeds, the headaches—it's like a stroke and a heart attack and a seizure, all at once.

"And you're strong, or you'd have dropped dead with the first demon you exorcised—but you're not that strong, Sam. The blood—it can't heal; it just fakes it. Like a demon possession—it keeps things together, keeps you on your feet, while your body heals. But this time..."

"The damage is too severe," Cas says, quiet and remote. More like the angel they first met than Sam can remember him sounding in years. "Too much for your body to repair itself."

"Oh," Sam says faintly. Not sure if he really understands, or if this is all in his own head anyway. Wishful thinking. It hurts to breathe; he inhales, draws in the most air he can, so the pressure of his lungs against his ribs stabs knife-like and pure through his chest. "So I'm human after all?"

"What?" Dean says, soft like Cas, then louder like himself, "What the fuck—of course you're human. Whatever they put in you, Yellow-Eyes or those British bastards—they did this _to_ you, they didn't make you. You're still you."

Sam looks up at him. "Still your brother," he says, not a question so much as a reminder. Because Dean is gone but Sam is still here, for now. And if he's still human, then that much of Dean still exists, in all the blood in Sam that's his.

"Always—nothing's gonna change that, ever." Dean's nonexistent eyes flash now in his nonexistent face, teeth bared in a snarl more than a smile. "Besides, everything we've found out, it's just a theory. The Men of Letters were just guessing about what demon blood could do, they didn't have any test subjects—"

"Until me," Sam says, hoarse with his dry throat.

Dean's eyes darken—not demon-black, but almost as empty a void as Amara's knight. "Until you. But whatever those sons of bitches did, we're gonna figure it out. Find a way to get you through this. But...until then."

Dean stops. Drags his hand through his hair, not looking at Sam, so Sam can't see what color his eyes have gone.

"The demon blood lingers in you, Sam," Cas says. "But its power is waning. And that power is all that's sustaining your body now. If it were strengthened, you'd be strengthened."

"Strengthened?" Sam asks, "How would it get stronger—" not getting it, and then he does.

He shoves back until his shoulders hit the dungeon's concrete wall, staring up at Cas. "No— _no_. I can't—there isn't any here—" There can't be any blood here. He's in the dungeon, and that's the only place they could keep a demon in the bunker. Even when Dean's a demon, he's here. And only in Sam's head anyway.

Dean draws an uneven breath. "We can go to a crossroads—even if no one will show for me, we've got another...anyway, we can do it."

"No," Sam says, shaking his head. "You can't—"

"We won't take enough to hurt the host," Dean says. "Not bleeding them dry—we'll just draw a couple doses. Enough to get you stable, and then we can exorcise—"

"No," Sam says. "Not a dose, not a drop—I'm not going to drink any more. Never again. These powers, I'm not using them again, whatever you do—"

"You won't have to! It's not for the powers, it's just to buy us more time—Sam?"

Sam's shoulders are shaking, the air rattling in his lungs as he tries to gasp in enough not to suffocate. It looks so much like the bunker, even now—and Dean he knew wasn't real, but Cas, he'd thought that Cas at least might be. How could he have been so stupid—giving into hope, when he should have known better. When he knew so well how much faith could hurt, when it was broken. "Screw you, I won't do it—you can't force any more of that poison down my throat—"

"Sammy!" Dean's green eyes before him, but the hands on his shoulders, clutching tight, might be real. Sam twists, swings a wild punch that connects with something, breaking him free but throwing him off-balance. He staggers to find his footing, orient himself toward the door. He's not going to make it far, but it's the principle, when he's given in for too long.

Sure enough, Cas—what looks like Cas, to Sam's delirious mind—grabs his arm. The angel's grip is like iron, brow lowered darkly over his blue eyes as he moves to press his other hand to Sam's forehead, to knock him out again.

"No—no, Cas, wait!" Dean says—or not Dean, for all the painful familiarity of his green eyes as he climbs to his feet, rubbing his jaw. Not a hallucinated ghost after all, but mistaken identity—or deliberate manipulation? Maybe Sam's not imagining everything; maybe this is a trick, some new spell...

"Sammy," the thing that's not Dean says, "no one's gonna tie you down, no one's poisoning anybody." He spreads his arms outward, hands open, nonthreatening. "We're not going to hurt you; you're safe here. As long as I'm...I can't, I can't always protect you, I've royally fucked that up how many times? But here—Sam, in here, for now, you're safe. I swear."

If Sam had a chance of getting past the guy who looks like Cas—if he had a chance of getting through the dungeon's doors, or whatever the hell was beyond that—but he doesn't. He knows he doesn't, so he just stands there, swaying, dizzy and breathless, trying to figure out what he can do.

Dean—the thing that looks like Dean—takes a step toward him. His arms are lowered to his sides, empty palms turned outward. "That's all we're talking about, Sam," he says in Dean's voice, low and strained. "The demon blood—it's to protect you. Keep you going, a little longer, while we figure out how to fix this."

"If you—" Sam tries to swallow, the dry surfaces of his throat scraping. "If you were really him—even in my head, my brother—Dean wouldn't, he'd never give me demon blood. He hated it—he hated that I was a monster, that I could drink it at all; he'd never—"

"Hey—hey!" and that is so convincingly like Dean's outrage, the balance of performed insult and genuine ire that only a brother with decades of practice can hit. "I didn't—I never said you were a monster, that wasn't me—and anyway, I _did_ give it to you; we had milk jugs of the damn stuff in the trunk, remember?"

Sam blinks at that reminder. "That was to defeat Lucifer."

"And this is to save your _life_ —you think I wouldn't give you anything, for that?" Dean's false eyes are fixed on Sam's face, searching. "We won't force you to drink it—I'm not tying you down again, that's not happening. But we can get a couple doses, just in case, if it comes down to the wire—"

Sam shakes his head, for all it off-balances him, makes him waver dizzily. Cas and Dean—what looks like Cas and Dean, in his confusion—both move toward him, and Sam lurches back. "No," he says, "no, because if it's here..."

It's not here; he could feel it, if there were a single drop of that power within the devil's trap. And yet for a moment he can taste it, thick and liquid on his desiccated tongue. A red film passes over his vision that he can't blink back, pulsing. "If it's here, you wouldn't have to tie me down."

Sam shakes his head through that haze. "But it can't, it won't save me," he says. "The blood, it can't heal— _something_ might survive, but it wouldn't be me."

And maybe that was why he had drunk it before, more than the thirst, more than how they had tied him down and forced it into his mouth. More than those demons tormenting him or the poor victims they were riding. Maybe that's what he wanted, to be gone—not just dead but replaced, everything he was erased. Like everything that was Dean is gone.

Dean is gone, but he wouldn't have wanted this. Sam can imagine his brother so clearly, gone white, staring at Sam.

Sam turns to Cas—or probably not really him at all; but it's all Sam can do. And they haven't tied him down yet, and they haven't brought blood here yet, across the dungeon's seals, when it's all they would have to do, so maybe... "Cas, please. You know what it'll do, if I drink that blood. What I'll become, what they wanted me to become—don't do this to me."

Cas looks at him, as lost as when Lucifer had broken him. Then looks to Dean, as if he's really there.

Dean is motionless for several long breaths. Finally he shakes his head, once, and Cas nods, straightens with the certainty of an order to follow. "We won't, Sam," he says. "We won't give you demon blood, if you don't want it."

Then Dean pushes forward, ahead of Cas, to look up Sam. "But if we do this—don't do this—you have to promise. You have to swear to me, Sam, that you're gonna make it through this. That you'll survive this—you're not gonna give up."

Years ago, Sam had made Dean promise—had forced a promise from him, _'You go live some normal, apple-pie life, Dean.'_ And Sam had known—had thought he'd known what he was asking; he had lived it for four months. But he hadn't understood yet, how much worse it was each time.

But Dean is staring up at him, green eyes burned dark with resolve in his pale face, a memory almost real enough to touch. Here, not here; it doesn't matter, with Dean looking at him like that. "All right," Sam says. "All right, I'll try. I promise."

"Good," Dean says. Nods, satisfied.

Sam nods back, but the tilt of his head tips him too far, overbalanced, the dungeon's walls swooping around him. He falls forward, expecting the pain of his knees hitting the concrete; but hands catch his shoulders first, prop him up.

They look like Dean's hands, but those aren't real. Maybe Castiel's are, though, his arm crooked under Sam's elbow, pulling him up, drawing him back to the mattress. The dizziness is slow to recede, even sitting. Sam struggles through the whirling chaos to reach out, snag Cas's arm. Grabs on to that one steady point, Cas strong and solid, watching Sam with somber blue eyes. "Cas," Sam says, "thank you."

Cas raises his free hand. "There isn't any more healing I can do, with the blood in you, but should I try to make you sleep again?"

Sam glances to his side, moving his head slowly, to not send the gradually settling room spinning again. Dean is sitting next to him on the mattress, his shoulder against Sam's, buttressing him when he would list over. Not real. But here. "No," Sam tells Cas. "I'm okay."

* * *

 **Chapter 11**

Later, Sam's mother is here, in the dungeon. Sitting beside his mattress with an icepack in her hand.

She doesn't look like the Mary Winchester Sam got to know, for that brief moment back in the past. She looks as she did when she died, like she does in the last couple photos they have. Except instead of a blouse or bloody nightgown, she's dressed like a hunter in jeans and flannel.

When he blinks at her, she smiles back, but it's not a beatific maternal smile; it's sad and strained. But heartfelt, like Dean's smiles. Her eyes are bluer, but she looks like her eldest son, more here in Sam's mind than she ever has in any of their pictures. "Hey," she says to him, finishing wrapping a washcloth around the icepack, before laying it over his forehead.

Sam wants to reach for her, but he's too slow; she's withdrawn her arm before he can raise his own. But she stays next to him, smiling tiredly. Her eyes are red—not a demon's, but bloodshot, like she's been crying.

"What's wrong?" Sam asks her.

To his dismay, that brings those held-back tears, welling up. "Oh, Sammy," she says. "I'm sorry—I'm so sorry."

Sam frowns, confused. Wishing that he could touch her, that she was real enough to comfort. "For what?"

His mother doesn't answer, her breath catching jaggedly as she shakes her head. Drops it down to hide from him, and he realizes what she's seeing. That she's crying over what her son has become, and his own breath stutters, thickening in his dry throat. "Mom," he says, "Mom, I'm sorry, I didn't—

"No—please, Sam, no." His mother shakes her head harder. Wipes her eyes with the side of her hand and lifts her face to him, struggling to retrieve her smile. "Dean didn't want me here," she says. "He asked me not to come in. To not confuse you...but also, I think, so I didn't see you like this. Or maybe so you wouldn't see me like this? I don't know if he was trying to protect you, or me."

"Both of us," Sam says. "That's Dean."

"Yes." Her smile is still sad, but softens a little, as if it takes less effort. "Both of you, you're so..." Her head falls again, hair hiding her face.

But her shoulders are shaking, and Sam tries to sit up, to reach for her. "Mom—"

"—so _gullible_ ," Mary says, and lifts her head to reveal that trembling is with laughter. A cruel, greedy grin splits her face.

Sam knows that grin, that terrible glee. He's seen it on enough faces now to recognize Lucifer wherever he goes. "No," he says, swallowing, forcing himself to stare at her direct. "You can't be here. You can't be in her."

"Oh, Sam," Lucifer says with his mother's lips. Extends her hand to touch his cheek, and smirks wider when he shrinks back. "Who else could I take? If John could host my big brother, where do you think the bloodline to hold me came from? Why do you think Azazel was so interested, the moment he laid his yellow eyes on this lovely young thing?" and Lucifer raises the vessel's slender strong arms, turns them admiringly.

"You're not real," Sam says.

"Think so?" Lucifer asks. "You're tasting blood, but I seem to still be here."

Sam unclamps his jaw, releases the mangled inside of his cheek caught between his teeth. There's iron on his tongue, but the pain's not sharp enough. Not real enough, even though he knows this can't be. "Even if you could get through all the bunker's wards—"

"—Not that hard; maybe that woman of Letters broke a few my dumbass little brother didn't know how to fix—"

"—my mother is dead and in Heaven," Sam says. "And there's no way the angels would release her to you."

"You sure of that, Sammy?" Lucifer looks down again, appraisingly, at his new vessel. "Are you really sure that's where Mommy dearest ended up? She made a deal, after all. Damned you to this," and her wide wave encompasses more than the dungeon or the bunker; covers more than thirty years. "Maybe she deserves me—maybe we deserve each other. Your two worst tormentors, the two of us who love you most. Our beautiful Sammy," and she moves too fast for Sam to duck, takes his head in her hands. Strokes her fingers across the curve of his cheek bones. "You wouldn't be here now, without either of us."

"No." Sam stares up into those blue-gray eyes. Wishing he knew them better, that he could more easily recognize the lie of them now. "This isn't her fault."

"Whose fault?" Dean's voice floats to Sam's ears from somewhere behind him. It's remote, that vision less vivid than Lucifer standing over him. But if he listens he can hear Dean asking, "What are you seeing, Sammy?"

Sam could almost laugh at the irony, one hallucination asking after another. Different planes of consciousness; or maybe it's a split-brain scenario, like an epileptic with a severed corpus callosum. So is Lucifer his left hemisphere, and Dean the right? But then, they're both more emotion than logic... "It's Lucifer," Sam says. He gazes up into that face, branded into his memory from those few photos. "I'm seeing Lucifer, in Mom's body."

Mary's smile opens to show her white teeth. "Not just _seeing_ ," she says. Puts her hand over his heart, crooking her fingers so her nails dig indents into the gray knit of his sweat-stained t-shirt.

Sam shakes his head, or tries to, against her other hand gripping his chin. Tells Lucifer, "No, this isn't real. She's in Heaven, where she belongs, safe out of your reach. The deal she made, it wasn't for her soul. And she didn't know what it would do—I've done worse. Made worse calls, knowing better. I'm here now because of my choices. Not hers."

"Right—the wrong choices," Lucifer says. "And you just keep making them, don't you, Sam? Do you think you'll ever be punished enough for them? Do you think I can punish you enough?" and her lip curls up in snarl as Lucifer plunges her hand into his chest—reaching for his soul, and Sam tries to shove him away, to force that hand from him. Claws at his chest, shredding the t-shirt, the skin underneath.

Behind Lucifer, Dean's voice echoes against the concrete walls, raised and panicked—"Oh, shit—Cas, get in here, he's—"

Hands force him down, shoulders flattened to the mattress—his mother's hands, clutching at his arms, holding him down. Sam can feel the warm wet of blood spreading through his t-shirt, trickling down his chest. It feels real, not the pure torment of a slashed soul, but physical, torn nerve endings throbbing. Lucifer is laughing, bent over him. Saying his name, voice screwed up with mocking concern, "Sam? Sammy? Sweetheart, can you hear me? Just stop, look at me, please—"

Other voices echo in his ears, tinny like he's hearing them through a tunnel. "Should we—"

"I don't—if this doesn't—"

"It will work, Dean—"

"It damn well better—if this keeps up—"

There's a new pain, brief and sharp, pinching his arm. Sam tries to flinch back from it, but he's held in place, Lucifer's hands stronger than steel.

It starts as a tingling, then a prickle, and then it's burning like a shot of acid direct into his veins. It spreads, diffusing through his tissues, circulating through his bloodstream until every fiber in him is radiating agony.

He doesn't know how long it takes before the pain recedes. Gradually, cell by cell, it ebbs, until only his chest is still aching, a tugging soreness as he breathes. That harsh panting sounds loudly in his ears, muffling the voices under it. "Sam—come on, Sam, stay with us, this'll pass—"

"His heartrate is leveling, Dean. I think the worst is over."

"The worst for now...if it was this bad with the first—"

"We didn't have much choice."

"Not much isn't the same as none. If this is the wrong call, if that woman's fucking with us...can you try again?"

A warm, weighted hand settles over Sam's face, his lashes brushing the palm. After a moment it lifts, and Cas says, "There's nothing I can do yet."

"Okay." Dean breathes in deep, lets it out in a hiss. "Then can you go and check on her—tell her I'm sorry for kicking her out? I just...he's so messed up, and this..."

"She understands, Dean."

"Yeah, whatever, just—make sure she's okay. And if she's ready, we're gonna to need more..."

Sam's chest still hurts, a throbbing itch. He raises an unsteady hand to scratch at it, only for fingers to wrap around his wrist, pulling back his arm. "Whoa, no, why don't we keep that bandage on," Dean says.

"Bandage?" Sam pries open his eyes, squints to bring into focus Dean's face, hovering over him, frowning. Wonders vaguely what is the psychological symbolism, that even his visions are blurred.

Dean puts his hand over Sam's chest, where Lucifer had plunged in his mother's hand. Dean's touch is gentle, barely twinging—so light it's not there at all. "The, uh, the demon blood got a little frisky. Ramped up the visions, made you...anyway, got it butterfly bandaged for now; hopefully you can skip the stitches."

"It wasn't...I saw..."

"Yeah, you mentioned," Dean says. "It was in your head, Sammy. The blood, messing with you. Lucifer's nowhere around here—he's not getting near you again."

Sam doesn't see him now, anyway. Doesn't see anyone but Dean, whose eyes are green in his wan, worn face. "How you feeling?" he asks Sam.

"Okay," Sam says automatically, then realizes it was more than a perfunctory question by how Dean's expression tightens. Sam takes a deeper breath, attempts to self-evaluate. "Chest hurts," he says. "Feeling a little nauseated." His voice is hoarse; his throat is sore, shredded though he doesn't remember screaming. He coughs, admits, "Thirsty."

"Water?" Dean asks, grabbing for one of the bottles by the mattress. By the time Sam nods, he's got the cap off, helps Sam sit up enough not to drench him when he tilts the bottle to his mouth. Dean doesn't even ask if Sam can hold it on his own; it would be annoying, except for how Sam can't even muster the strength to wave him off.

The water is lukewarm, astringent from the plastic. Sam makes himself drink it anyway, gulping without tasting. "Easy there," Dean says, but he's smiling, patient and gratified. Says, "Good job, Sam," like Sam's done something genuinely impressive, taken down some ancient monster rather than half a bottle of water.

Afterwards Dean sticks a thermometer in Sam's mouth, all but cheers at the results. "Down four degrees—still way too high, but maybe it's working after all!"

"What's working?" Sam asks.

That sobers Dean fast. "Okay, so this is the bad news..."

He looks relieved to be interrupted by Cas pushing open the dungeon door. The angel sees Sam and breaks into a smile, or at least a less pensive frown. "You're awake?"

"And back with us," Dean says. "More than he was—it's a good sign, right?"

Sam doesn't notice. He's transfixed by what Cas is holding—a hypodermic, one of the antique syringes from the bunker's medical supplies. The lamplight glints off the narrow metal needle.

The barrel's glass cylinder is filled with red.

Sam's up before he's fully aware of moving, jerked to his feet so fast his teeth clack together. One of his hand's reaching out and the other's clenched in a fist. He wants to run; he wants to leap on Cas and bring him crashing down; he wants to dig through the concrete under his feet and bury himself; he wants to fight, swing that clenched fist; he wants—he wants—

"—Sam," Dean is saying in his ear, nonexistent hand on Sam's arm, "Sammy, it's okay, it's—"

Sam's chest is aching, but he forces out the last air in his lungs. "No—no, Cas, you told me, you wouldn't—"

Cas is shaking his head, but whatever he would say is drowned out by Dean's sharp, "Sam!" Dean's voice is loud, for not being here at all, right in Sam's ear. He's got a vise grip on Sam's biceps, dragging him down to look him directly eye to eye. "It's not demon blood," Dean says. "I swear. I told you, we wouldn't—and I know my track record sucks for this kind of thing, but you promised me, Sam, and I believed you. I'm trusting you, so trust me. The blood in that syringe, it didn't come from a demon."

Sam is shaking, and he doesn't know if it's from the effort of standing or of not fighting back. Doesn't know whether he wants to rip his arm out of Dean's grasp or lean into his brother's support. He's staring at the syringe in Cas's hand, the iron red of the blood.

"Like we were talking about before, it's not just withdrawal," Dean says. "What's happening to you, our books had theories, but nothing about how to fix it..." He hesitates, long enough that Sam manages to pull his eyes from that crimson to glance at Dean. Who's frowning, but he's looking straight at Sam, not wavering. When he sees he's got Sam's attention, he resumes, "You said it yourself, the American Men of Letters, they didn't have enough info on the demon blood. But someone does. So we contacted the Brits—that woman, Bevell."

"Toni," Sam says. His mouth is so dry it aches, the surface of his swollen tongue stretched to cracking.

"Yeah," Dean says. "Since she was the one who tagged Cas, I figured maybe she'd be willing to help, if they had anything. And she was—said she wanted the chance to make it up to you. It sounds like their expert is out of commission—" The Man of Letters Aloysius—he could be dead, could be in a coma, could be worse. Sam doesn't want to know, doesn't want to care. And Dean doesn't know it should matter, so just goes on, "—But Bevell went through his research, and came back with something. Not a great something, but it was what we got..."

Sam looks back at Cas, and the syringe he holds. "Not demon blood?"

Cas shakes his head. "The opposite."

Dean flicks a finger at the hypodermic's red-filled barrel. "That's consecrated blood."

Sam blinks. The déjà vu is enough to give him vertigo, even if his head weren't already spinning. Dean's hand tightens on his arm, steadying his sway. Before, it was Dean here—for real, then. Except not really Dean. But in the dungeon, within the devil's trap. Tied in a chair, while Sam held the needle. "The demon cure?"

Dean grimaces. "More or less—with some extras. A few more spells over it, a couple more specific requirements. Because you're not a demon, but..."

"I'm close enough."

"No!" Dean snaps. "No, you're not, Sam. This garbage is in you, but it's not you. Believe me, I know the damn difference."

"Dean," Cas says, low and intense in a way that might be reproach, might be sympathy. The angel looks from him to Sam. "This blood is of you, Sam—nearly of you. The hope is that it will replace the demon blood—cleanse those impurities from your system. And once cleared, I should be able to heal you."

"But that's the problem," Dean says. "As the demon blood's power drops off—the weaker it gets, the more your body's hurting."

"The more my body's hurting me," Sam says.

"Yeah, so we need to do this quick. Get it all out to get Cas fixing you. And now that we've started..."

"We have to keep going." Once a spell is begun, it needs to be continued; rituals rarely come with an undo button.

Dean swallows, jaw tightening. "I didn't...I don't want to do this, Sammy."

Sam stares at him. Of everything he's seen Dean be in the past days, this is the most unbelievable hallucination. "You don't want to save me?"

"No! I mean—fuck, yes, obviously, but..." Dean shakes his head. "I know what this feels like. How much it's gonna suck."

"Yeah," Sam says. Privately doubting—Dean can't know, not really. His heart has pumped demon blood, but he's never tasted it. But Sam promised. He holds out his arm to Cas, turned up to show the vein through the elbow. "Then we should get on with it—get it over with."

The angel moves forward, but Dean puts out his hand. "No, I can do it."

"You don't have to," Cas says. But he gives the hypodermic to Dean.

It would make a difference, if Dean were really here. Cas is competent in most things, but he has little firsthand experience from either side of medicine, and even less in reducing pain.

Dean's hands are steady, his grip gentle. Sam watches the needle go in. Barely feels the prick, through the burning. "So whose blood is it?" Sam asks. "Cas's?" He's not sure whether angel blood even could be consecrated; it's a metaphysical quandary.

But Dean shakes his head as he slowly pushes in the plunger. "No. Didn't want to risk mixing magics. Or giving you a new habit."

"But not yours," Sam says, only slightly challengingly. It can't be Dean's. Because whatever is injected in him—whoever is really injecting it—it's real enough to do something.

Dean hesitates, but finally shakes his head again. "No, not mine." He puts his thumb over the skin to gently pull the needle out, pinching closed the prick. "Couldn't risk that, either," he says quietly. "Whatever's in me might not be pure—not like there's a test for ex-demonhood. And Chuck himself said that I'm tainted. But this blood—don't worry, Sam, the donor's willing. Wants to help. After this is over..."

It sounds like Dean wants to say more, and Sam wants to listen. But the cleansing fire is flaring through his own tainted veins, and his breath is catching with that pain.

He squeezes shut his eyes, focuses on breathing through it. And for all that he's being burned from the inside out, the warmest thing he can feel is Dean's insubstantial hand on his arm, holding fast.

* * *

 _to be continued..._

 _For anyone interested, I'm posting chapters more regularly on AO3; FFnet makes posting more difficult, and as there aren't many people reading here, I opted to save time and consolidate updates. There should be 3 more chapters to go, which I'll put up on FFnet once the fic is done._


	11. Chapter 12-14

**Chapter 12**

Cas gives him the injection the next time. The time after that, it's Dean again, but his eyes are solid black and he's grinning as he jabs the needle in. "Turnabout is fair play, right, Sammy?" he says, and leaves Sam lying on the mattress, sweating and contorted, as he steps over the devil's trap without flinching.

Eventually Sam loses track of the count. The intervals of consciousness between doses shorten until there is no pause between the needle and the agony.

It's almost easier that way, with no respite to remind him that there is anything but pain. Transitions are what hurts the most—to breathe and then to suffocate; to have and then to lose. Burns are most painful when they're healing; for now there is only the fire.

The only sense he has of progression is the changing faces around him. Cas's jaw is more tightly clenched, every time Sam sees him, peering through slit eyes when the angel kneels beside him. Sam tries, for Cas's sake, to hold himself still for the needle. Bites his tongue to not cry out, because that release helps only a little, not enough to be worth the whitening of his friend's face.

Once the angel would have been stoic through this, but that was a long time ago. And once it might have been pride, that Sam would fight to seem strong. After Famine, he'd begged Dean and Cas to close the panic room door on him, to tie him down and leave him to his weakness. He'd thought then that their pity, their disgust, was worse than the withdrawal.

He knows better now what strength is, what weakness is. Knows the impossibility of pretending one to deny the other. He's been stripped raw and ripped open; he's failed and paid for it and failed again. Cas has already seen the worst of him. Yet in spite of that, it still hurts Cas, to see Sam hurting. So Sam tries not to show the pain he's in. There's enough already in the world, and he's responsible for too much of it; anything he can do to lessen it, he owes that much.

But Cas has to leave him, to prepare more of the blood from its unknown source, and Sam knows how soundproof the dungeon walls are. So when Cas is gone, he lets himself scream and sob, shaking and twisting against the agony flowing through him.

And whenever he catches his breath, he can hear Dean's voice, hoarse and strained to cracking, muttering a litany like a prayer, "It'll be okay, Sam, you're gonna get through this—hold on, Sammy, you can do this..."

Sometimes Sam imagines Dean draping a cloth-wrapped icepack over his forehead, or dripping water on his parched lips. Or else Dean's eyes are black mirrors and his mouth is dripping blood, crimson streaking his teeth, dark stains seeping into his gums, as he tells Sam, "It's going to be over soon." The blood trickles past his lips, down his chin. "Just a little longer..."

* * *

Cas enters again, sits on the mattress next to Sam, but though Sam braces for it, there's no needle put to his arm.

Instead, Cas lays his hand over Sam's forehead, palm covering his eyes. Sam tends to think of Cas's healing as warmth, but his hand is cool now—blessedly cool, soothing against his skin as ice water on a parched tongue.

He exhales, feeling his body loosen like an unraveled knot, muscles held rigid for so long that he no longer remembered they could relax. The bedclothes under him are damp, sticky and sour with sweat, but he's too exhausted to shift off them.

"So is it out yet?" Dean asks, somewhere over him. "Is this enough?"

Maybe Sam only imagines it, that Cas's hand over his face gets cooler. "No," the angel says. "What I can do now...it's relief, but not lasting healing. We need to complete the ritual."

He withdraws his hand, and Sam realizes what he means, how damaged he really is. His breath starts to wheeze, made shallow as if his lungs have shrunk; he can't catch it no matter how deeply he tries to suck in air.

Then Dean shoves himself into Sam's line of sight, silhouetted against the lit ceiling. "Breathe with me, Sam—" and Dean hasn't used that voice in a long time, not partner but bossy big brother. Sam learned that voice on hunts, _Shoot, Sammy_ — _duck, Sammy_ — _run, Sammy!_ —and his body listens before the words even register—"One, two, three, out—hold it—now in, one two—that's it, you're doing great..."

"You see," Cas says. "That's all I can do, and even that much, I couldn't keep it up for long..."

"You'd burn out," Sam rasps.

Dean has a hand on Sam's shoulder, fingers digging in and then relaxing, rhythmically, in time with how Sam's lungs should work. "So we go on as planned. Finish the cure, and then once the blood's canceled out, you can fix him."

"I was hoping I could do it like that," Cas says.

"What do you mean, hoping?" Dean's fingers tighten with bruising pressure, then spasmodically release an instant before Sam twitches. "Cas, this whole damn plan was based on you healing him; if you don't—"

"I know," Cas says, agitated, like a stirred glass, his grace flickering in his eyes. "And I will! But to fix this much damage, what I can do from here...it's not enough."

"From here?" Dean repeats. He frowns at Sam—the same frown as from a hundred hunts, _'What the hell?',_ expecting Sam to have researched the answer.

Which Sam hasn't done, and he's confused for a moment. Until he sees Cas's face, the hesitation—more than that; contrition, and Sam understands.

Dean gets it, the same time Sam does, of course, as his figment. "No," Dean says, looking from Sam to Cas, shaking his head. "No, you can't, Cas—you can't go into him!"

"Not all the way," Cas says. "Not full possession. But for this much healing, from this kind of harm, I need to reach deep. Even further than touching a soul."

"Deep enough that you need my permission," Sam says.

Cas doesn't look relieved at that understanding, just nods gravely. "Yes. If you could give it to me, Sam."

Sam looks at him, then to his brother, jaw clenched, fist clenched. "And then you'll heal me—the fever, the symptoms, all of it?"

"I should be able to, yes."

Sam inhales, laboring like the air is thin, but he can hear the bunker's ventilation fans. It's his own lungs that are failing to take in the oxygen present. "Can I have a minute alone, Cas? To think about it?"

"Of course," Cas says. Rises and heads to the dungeon door.

Dean starts to follow him, but Sam shakes his head, motions for him to stay. After a moment, Dean circles back. He sits on the crate by the mattress, with his head dropped in his hands. Waits until Cas has closed the door, then says, "Sam, it's all right." His voice is tight, like he's struggling to keep it even. "I won't—that promise I asked from you, this isn't what I meant. You don't have to do this, if—it doesn't matter that it's Cas, it's still—"

"Obviously it matters," Sam says. "I trust Cas."

Dean's whole body jerks, a shuddering shiver like a drowning man just pulled out from under the ice. "So—you'll do it? Let him in to heal you?"

Sam sits up with effort, pushing himself up on the pillow to look at Dean. At his brother, sitting by his bedside, all desperation and hope. Green eyes now, as real and convincing as ever he has been. For just this little longer. "I don't know," Sam says.

"Why not?" Dean demands. "If you trust him..."

"I trust Cas to heal me," Sam says. "If I want to be healed."

"Of course you do, why wouldn't you..." The paleness of his face makes Dean's eyes stand out all the more vividly. "If it's the demon blood—that wasn't your fault, Sam, and whatever you did, it's on those British bastards. You deserve this—you deserve to get better just so you can kick their limey asses—"

"It's not that."

"Then what? I know, I know how this cure or whatever you want to call it hurts, but—"

"I'm sorry," Sam tells him.

"Don't—you don't have to be sorry," Dean says, hoarse and choked, like he'd just taken a gut punch. "I'm the one who—seems like whenever I try to save you, all I do is hurt you more—"

"But I did it to you first," Sam says. He shivers though his skin is burning, sweat beading cold on his cheeks, stinging in his eyes. "The blood cure, the needle—if I'd known..."

"What?—No! No, Sam—" Dean grabs Sam's face in both his hands, leans close enough for Sam to see himself in the depth of his pupils, darker even than the demon's black. "I wanted it, Sam—the cure, I wanted it. Whatever the hell I said then—I couldn't live as that thing. And you wouldn't let me, even if I wasn't strong enough to end it myself—I owe you for that, owe you so fucking much..."

As if Sam doesn't know how that ledger is balanced—not that they'd ever talked about it, ever tallied it up, but Sam know how deep in the red he would've been. He shakes his head, turning against Dean's grip.

Dean lets him go, hands clenching and unclenching against his thighs. "This—this is a hell of a way to repay you, but it's almost over, and—"

"It's not the cure," Sam says. "It sucks, but if it gets the demon blood out of me—I want it out, I want it gone."

"But if you don't give Cas the permission he needs to heal you after—"

"If he heals me," Sam says, "if I'm well again, no longer seeing things—then you're gone, Dean. Really gone. And that..." He would close his eyes if he dared, but he can't risk it, can't lose sight of what's before him now. "This, the dungeon, the fever, the visions, I can take it. And this blood cure hurts, but it's just pain.

"But I already had to stand in that cemetery and watch—like I was standing in Roman Enterprises HQ; and, and you came back then, eventually, but it took so long, it was—and this time—I can't do it again. I can't just watch you vanish, without me, again. I can't."

Dean stares at him. Struck frozen.

So still that when he does move, Sam doesn't react in time to duck the punch. Dean's fist is already made; the blow lands untelegraphed, solidly against his jaw.

Sam rocks back on the mattress, catches himself on his elbow. Pulls up a trembling arm to drag it across his mouth. "Ow," he says. It wasn't hard enough a hit to make his head ring, but his bottom lip is bleeding a little where it caught against his teeth. The coppery taste is bitter on his tongue, toxic.

Dean is still staring at him, not even flexing his hand. "See?" he says, and his voice is shakier than Sam's arm. He points a finger at the blood. "Real—that's real. I'm real."

"So Lucifer was, too?" Sam asks, dropped his hand to his chest, the still-bandaged wound. It's sore; he probably ripped it open again when in the throes of the cure. The ache is almost comforting in how it's localized, controlled. "Lucifer in Mom—or Lilith—or Ruby—that was real?"

Dean shakes his head. "That was all the demon blood—but it's out of you now. Most of it. You're not seeing anything now, are you?"

"You," Sam says. "All I see is you."

"That's why you wouldn't test me before, wasn't it," Dean says. "Why you wouldn't check if I was a hallucination."

Sam shrugs. "I know I should want the truth—want what's real. But this..."

Dean shuts his eyes, puts his knuckles to his temples and grinds in. "Sorry," he rasps.

"It doesn't really hurt," Sam says. The cut has already scabbed over, and he kindly doesn't point out that Dean didn't hit hard enough to bruise. Even without demon blood, it's no worse than Sam has bitten his own lip accidentally. Real Dean knew how to throw a punch.

"No," Dean says. He lowers his hands and lifts his head to meet Sam's eyes. Swallows and says, "So—so this is it? You're gonna give up here—almost healed, but you're gonna let the demon blood kill you. Even though you promised me—promised a dead man, a figment of your imagination, so I guess it doesn't count, huh?"

Dean's eyes are still green, but his voice is angry—not the demon's laconic sadism, not the hollow calm of Amara's knight. This is Dean, too, Dean who can be as vicious as any of his darkest parts, when he's angry—when he's frightened. When he's trying to hold on and feels his grip slipping. It's almost a comfort, in how recognizable it is. "Dean," Sam says, "I wish I were strong enough. I do. Because I know it's what you'd want. For me to go on—"

"Damn straight it's what I want," Dean says harshly. "What I'm counting on—I thought you'd learned it by now, that Winchesters don't give up. That we can't—this poor stupid fuck-up of a world needs us to keep fighting. For it, for us, for everything. I thought you got that, finally. The fucking sun was going out and you were still fighting—but now you're gonna throw in the towel."

It hurts, more than his sore lip—the guilt is real. But not that much more. That freedom is not even from the exhaustion weighing down his limbs, or the dark spots encroaching on his vision. Sam leans his heavy head back against the wall, the stone cool against the back of his scalp.

It's the knowledge, the certainty. He knows who he is. He's seen enough to be sure. If his subconscious wants to argue it out—there's catharsis in confession. Once you're already falling, there's nothing you can do but relax into freefall, until you hit the ground. "I can't do it alone. What we do—it's what _we_ do. What we did. It only works together. I'm not strong enough—Dean wasn't either. That's just how it is."

Dean says nothing, and Sam swallows. Not wanting to raise his eyes—not wanting to look up and not see Dean anymore. Maybe it would be worse, for him to just be gone, without even seeing him disappear.

Then—"And that's the point," Dean says. "That's why you gotta survive this. Make it through this demon blood hell, so you can go get your dumbass of a brother back again."

Sam jerks his head around sharp enough to bang it against the stone. Blinks through the dizziness of pain and fatigue at Dean, crouched beside him and glowering.

Sam swallows. "Dean—Dean is gone. Not just dead; that explosion, those souls—his soul—"

"Then you get it back," Dean says. "Pick up the pieces, put it back together. You're the smart one, you can figure it out. As long as you're not juiced up or dying."

"But that's—"

Dean's voice drops too low for harshness, barely audible. "You ever think that maybe Dean was counting on that? That when he went to Amara—he knew what he had to do; but there was still a part of him thinking, hoping, that you might get him out of this yet. And he was going to try to meet you halfway. Because you can count on that, Sammy—that wherever he ended up, whatever's left of him, he'd be trying to make it back to you. Back to where he belongs, but it's not enough. He doesn't have what it takes.

"So you've gotta do the heavy lifting here. It's on you. Wherever Dean is, he can't reach you, so he's counting on you to get to him. And I'm sorry for that, Sammy, it's not fair, it's not supposed to be like this—"

Sam frowns—this too is Dean, cruelly so, too painfully familiar. "It's fair," he says. "It's always fair—he'd do the same for me."

Dean breathes out, shuddering. "Yeah," he says. "Always."

Sam rocks back his head. Looks up at the painted ceiling and murmurs, "Cas? I've decided."

Even if he could shout, it wouldn't be audible through the dungeon's walls. But the angel can hear prayers.

Sam would close his eyes, except that then he couldn't see Dean, kneeling before him, pale-faced and staring. Mouth open but he's not speaking, holding his breath.

The dungeon's doors slide open and Cas comes in. "Sam?"

"Yes," Sam tells him. "You have my permission."

Dean's catch of breath is so sharp it sounds painful. "Thanks," he breathes out. "You—thank you."

"No," Sam says. "You can't thank me—not when I haven't even gotten you back. When I'm the one who—"

"No," Dean says, "you're not, that's not—"

"Dean," Cas says, soft and serious. "If this is to succeed, then any more delay..."

"Yeah," Dean says, "okay," and he accepts the syringe Cas gives him. There's no needle attached, though, and instead of putting it to Sam's arm, Dean tips it over his hand, spreading blood over his palm. He studies it a moment, then raises his eyes to Sam's. "You ready?"

Sam inhales, as deep as his straining lungs can manage, lets it go. Nods.

" _Exorcizamus te_ ," Dean recites. He grips Sam's shoulder with one hand. The other he holds carefully level before him, the blood pooling in his cupped palm. " _Omnis immundus spiritus, hanc animam redintegra_..."

Though it's not really Dean, it can't be, when only a real person could do this—but Sam looks straight at his brother and doesn't try to see what face is really behind him. Not when this is the last time he can see Dean.

Not until he gets him back, anyway.

" _Lustra_ ," Dean says, and he puts his hand to Sam's mouth, blood on his lips, on his tongue—but it's not the blood Sam has been craving all these days. It's acrid, caustic like battery acid, and he instinctively twists away from that poison, choking and gagging, pushing back with his arms, with his shoulders, with the last power in him—but there's not enough left. That bloody hand is sealed over his mouth and the blood is like molten metal, pouring down his throat like scalding oil, and he's not strong enough, not to survive this—

"Sam," Castiel says, and the angel's hand on his chest is so heavy Sam can feel it through the pain, bearing down, compressing his chest as if to wring the last tainted blood from his heart. "Sam, do you—"

Not strong enough, but he must. Dean's hand is lifted, and Sam mouths, with no air left in his lungs to voice it, " _Yes_ —"

 _"Lustra,_ " Dean completes the invocation, and the lethal blood flares in Sam—a sun going nova, nuclear, charring his bones within his flesh, his own tainted blood boiling into mist, leaving not even a shadow of consciousness behind.

* * *

 **Chapter 13**

"—Sam? _Sam!_ "

It's a sound he's heard before. Syllables he should recognize, he's almost positive—

"—Sam?" That's Cas's voice, raspy and anxious.

Except it's also not that at all—it's Cas speaking, unmistakably; but it's not rasping but ringing, chiming like steel on crystal, like metal tines against teeth—"It's me, it's only me, you must stay calm—"

"—Stay _calm!?_ —"

Sam's eyes open—does he open them? He isn't sure; but they are opened. His head is rocked to the side, so that he is looking at Cas sitting next to him—slumped on the floor, head flopped down, eyes closed, with one arm outstretched to rest on Sam's chest.

"—supposed to stay calm when he's not _breathing_ —"

Breathing—that's something he should do, Sam is almost positive; but he can't remember how to work his lungs. Yet he can feel his chest moving anyway, rising and falling, pushing up against Cas's heavy hand flattened over his sternum.

He can feel something tearing in his chest, or already torn, throbbing, bleeding. His heart aches as if a wire is wrapped around it, biting into the tissue, digging bloody millimeters deeper with every beat. He can almost see it, in his mind's eye, the shredded muscle trussed up and held together by silvery light.

"It's working, I think," Cas says, "but there's a lot to fix," and his voice sounds grating and flat like Cas always sounds; yet his voice also peals out like a bell, like a thunder strike, electric and terrified and loving. But not loving like Lucifer's vast, eternal, resentful worship—almost like a human, selfishly limited, uncertain and hopeful.

"Cas," Sam says, "it's you," not questioning; there is no question, not when he can hear the angel's voice so clearly.

"Yes," Cas agrees, "It's me—I'm here, Sam," and Sam does not see Cas's mouth move to speak the words; but he feels them resonate through his body, feels his own lips shaping them.

"He's awake? He's feeling this? There has to be something you can do—please, Cas, you're in there, there's gotta be some way, put him into a dream, or—"

"I'm doing what I can," Cas says, or Sam says for him, "but it's taking most of my strength just to—I'm sorry, but I have to continue, while I can—" and the wire around Sam's heart pulls taut, and he would scream, if only he still knew how to breathe—

* * *

The modern world is loud—car motors, jet engines, air conditioners, computer fans. Your brain gets so good at tuning out the noise that you often don't even notice until you go somewhere without any of it. Climbing on an isolated mountaintop can feel like revelation. Make you wonder how you can ever hear anything, when every note of birdsong or rustle of wind through leaves carries so clearly, discrete and beautiful in itself.

It's like that with her, except not just with sound; with everything. Nothing makes a sound, nothing catches the eye; not so much as a draft stirs against his skin. Sam turns his head and notices the flex and pull of each muscle involved, every separate and unique sensation, as definite as pain, and yet it doesn't hurt.

Nothing hurts—not the blood in him, not any of his dozens of old scars, not even a twinge of developing carpal tunnel syndrome in his overstrained wrists—and it's been so long since that's been true that Sam is holding his breath, waiting for the numbness to pass. Until his lungs start to ache—left and right, and he feels it in each. Inhales and feels the air flowing down his throat, filling his alveoli.

She stands a few arms' lengths before him, watching him, head tilted slightly, like Cas when he's confused by some odd social expectation or other. Studying him with those intense dark eyes.

Sam only saw her a couple times before, in battle, when she was angry—attacking, desperate. She was terrifying then, the primal power of a tornado, a hurricane, times a billion, unconvincingly delimited by a human shape.

What she is now is beyond words. Sam swallows, feeling the muscles work around the thick column of his esophagus. Says, "Amara."

"Sam," she says back.

 _Hello Darkness my old friend_ , sings a little voice in the back of Sam's mind. If Dean could actually hold a tune, it would be his voice. Of course.

The hysteria is as distinct and individual a sensation as anything else here. Which is all a dream, Sam tells himself, over that little floating melody. Only a dream. Amara was destroyed.

But she's watching him now, in his dream. And standing in the eye of her storm, he feels himself calm, breath slowing as that taut thread of panic slackens, vibrations slowing. Until everything within him is as still as the void around them.

It's almost like being soulless—yet without the sense of loss, of restless absence. No part of him is missing. Just quieted.

Maybe this is why, among all his hallucinations, he never saw her. He doesn't deserve this peace. "So what are you doing here now?" Sam asks. "Why would I see you now, when that's supposed to be over?"

She frowns slightly, brow creasing. "Dean asked me to," she says. "He's been praying to me...I think that's what he's been doing. Maybe he wouldn't call it that, but I've heard him."

"Dean is dead," Sam says. As he has so many times now. It doesn't get any easier to say. "Gone. To destroy you."

"He was going to, but he didn't," Amara says. "So I'm not destroyed, and he's still here. And once in a while he thinks of me. Thinks of what I gave him, and what I could give him.  
It's strange; I thought I wouldn't like it—to have a name, that you can't ignore, that you always have to hear. And sometimes I don't care for it. But Dean is the only one who calls it, and not often. And it's so different from what I had before, when there was nothing...sometimes I wish he would do it more. I can almost understand why my brother likes it so much, to hear all of you saying his name."

"So Dean—Dean asked you to come to him?" Sam asks, almost comforted. So this is just that nightmare, Dean choosing Amara over him, over the everything, in the end. As Dean hadn't done. However much Sam might wish he had.

But Amara shakes her head. "No, Dean asked me to come to you."

"To me?" That should be terrifying. But Sam's heart keeps a steady rhythm in his chest, no cold sweat forming on his brow. He doesn't take a step back, just stands here facing her. "Why? What are you going to do to me?"

"What was in you—there's a little left." Amara's eyes are darkness itself on him—not void; anything but empty. "A little of you that's still demon, even after the exorcism and the angel's healing. I can take it from you, get rid of it. So you are more like you would've been, if there had never been a demon in your nursery." She raises her hand.

Sam stops her, taking hold of her wrist to keep her fingers from touching her face. "Wait," he says. Her bare skin is cool, but not unnaturally so; smooth and pliant like a human's, not current-charged, for all the power in her eyes.

"It won't hurt," Amara tells him. "I don't want to hurt you—I never did. I only wanted to hurt my brother, and I don't want that anymore, either."

"You said it's me," Sam says. "The demon—that it's not the blood; it's me."

"The tainted blood had been cleansed," she says. "It will pass from your body. What's left is the part of you already changed. That the angel can't heal—that wants for more of that blood, of that power, to remake all the rest of you."

"And that's what you can destroy," Sam says.

"I can."

Sam swallows. "Will it kill me—is it killing me? Is that why I'm not waking up now, because Cas can't heal me enough?"

"No," Amara says. "The angel is healing you right now, and when he's done you'll be alive, and mostly well. Your physical form will be weakened, but that should recover, I believe. My brother made you living things remarkably dedicated to staying that way, at least in the short term."

"But what's changed in me, that will stay changed?"

"I don't know," Amara says. "You are different now, from what I saw of you before. Taking this from you, you would be more different; not like you've ever been. But then, Dean is different now too, than when I first saw him, and I haven't taken anything from him. You change so quickly." Her brow furrows more deeply, though Sam doesn't think she's angry. "I thought I wouldn't like that, either. But it's interesting. It makes me want to keep watching you, to see what you'll be later."

"Then, no," Sam says. He gently pushes back her hand. She lets him move her, though she's frowning. "Please don't take anything from me."

"This is what Dean wants," she says. "This is what he's asked for, in himself, for so long, to stop what hurts you."

"I know," Sam says, "but this is what I want—I don't want you to destroy any part of me."

The Darkness cocks her head. She's not as tall as him, but somehow she doesn't have to look up to meet his eyes. "My brother says it matters, what you want," Amara says. "He says that what you decide, that's what matters most, of anything. More than what I want, or what he wants."

"I guess it does," Sam says shakily.

"Except I don't think he's fair about it," Amara says. "Because he and I, what we want, we can have, unless we choose not to. But he determined so many things for you—these physical bodies, that need to eat and sleep, that break and age and finally die. Your brains within them, that can also be broken, that mere molecules can alter, changing what you think, what you want. And your souls are so matched to this form that it molds their shape, always.

"Here, with me, you're not in pain, and so you choose this. If you were hurting now, maybe you would choose something else. I was hurting, and I wanted to hurt my brother. Then Dean reminded me of what else I wanted, too, and I decided not to be hurt anymore. But you can't decide that."

"Not usually, no," Sam admits. "And you're right, about all of that. But it still matters, what we decide. Even with all those limits. It matters to us."

"And to my brother," Amara says. "So I won't do this, if you don't want me to."

"Thank you," Sam says. Even though this is just a dream. It feels real, all the same, like dreams do, until you wake up. It feels like it matters.

"There isn't much more I can do, then," Amara says. "Not without my brother figuring it out, and I'm not supposed to be here. But you can stay here with me a little longer, while the angel heals your body."

"And when I wake up, I'll be healed?"

"Probably, mostly." Amara sounds neither interested nor especially bored. Though she's watching Sam still.

"So I won't be hallucinating anymore. I'll only see what's real."

Amara's brows go up. "Can any of you see that? I didn't know you were so perceptive." She shrugs. "You can wake up now, if you want. Or you can wait here, for a little longer."

Wait with her. The end of all things, merciful, as endings are.

When Sam sets his jaw, he can feel the pressure through the root of every tooth. But it doesn't hurt, not really; nothing here does. He's yet to figure out if the stillness around her is relaxing or deafening—the peace of a mountaintop, or the silent ringing after an explosion. It makes him want to cover his ears. Or else shout until he's hoarse.

But this void is meaningless compared to the emptiness awaiting him when he wakes.

"I'll stay," Sam says.

* * *

The line between unconsciousness and awareness is confused. There is no alarm, no specific signal to wake him. Sam's first thought is, oddly, that he doesn't know what happened to his phone—how many messages does he have going unanswered?

His second is the realization that he is thinking at all. It's only when he tries to move, struggling with weakened limbs heavier than if he were wrapped in lead, that he remembers the rest. He groans against the pull of gravity, blinks open his eyes.

"Sam?" Cas's face hovers over him, interrupting his view of the devil's trap painted on the dungeon's ceiling. His blue eyes are wide, alarmingly vivid against his paste-white complexion as he stares down at Sam. "How do you feel?"

Sam hears the words only in his ears, rattling hollowly, like a few dry grains of rice at the bottom of a deep bowl. He works his tongue, sticking to the roof of his mouth. His voice when it comes is even rougher than Cas's, the only voice of Cas's he can hear. "Thirsty."

Cas frowns. "Will water suffice?"

Sam tries to figure that out. Finally admits, "Don't know."

But when the angel puts the bottle of lukewarm water to his lips, Sam drinks, and drinks more. Gulps it down, reveling in the sweetness of the liquid rushing against his tongue.

Cas holds the bottle, and Sam swallows until his stomach turns, until he's coughing up all of what he drunk, and then more, curled on his side, heaving up black bile.

"I'm sorry," Cas says over his retching, "it's my fault, I shouldn't have let you..." His voice sounds like an echo, so indistinct compared to before, like he's hardly here at all. But he puts his hand to Sam's forehead, and warmth flows over him, as soothing as the water, settling his stomach, his raw throat.

"It's okay," Sam says, when he's caught his breath. He's lying on his side on the mattress, his head too heavy to lift, even to spit away the bitterness on his tongue. "Thanks for the drink."

Cas nods seriously. "You should rest more, if you can. You're more healed than not, but—as I keep trying to explain—I can only do so much for exhaustion. And I'd rather not knock you out, unless I absolutely _have_ to," and he lifts his chin to glare—not at Sam but past him, inexplicably glowering at the far side of the dungeon, out of Sam's line of sight.

It's not really a case of _can_ , Sam could tell him. More like _can't help it_ —Sam's eyelids close as if invisible threads are winding them down, dragging him back down into sleep before he can voice any question, or decide if he wants to ask one at all.

* * *

The next time Sam remembers opening his eyes, his brother is there. Sitting on a chair by the bed, leaning forward with a smile breaking across his face—a grin, like Sam hasn't seen from him in longer than he can remember. "Hey," Dean says.

"Hey," Sam says back, bewildered; then he understands.

This isn't Amara's void. Instead he's in his own bedroom in the bunker. His own bed, mattress springs squeaking under him, rather than the memory foam on the dungeon floor.

Dean sees his eyes go from the fan turning overhead, to the books and files tilted on the shelves. Everything as Sam could last remember it being. "According to Cas, you're all cleaned up, so we thought it'd be okay to move you to somewhere more comfortable—thought you would've woken up enough to notice, but I guess not?"

But his room wouldn't look like this anyway; Lucifer had last been in it, when he was in Cas's vessel. He would've wrecked things, just because he could. Still. "It's nice to be back," Sam says. "Thanks."

Dean picks up a bottle of Gatorade from the nightstand. "Something to drink?"

"Please," Sam says, and Dean glances at his shaky hands, casually twists off the cap before passing over the bottle.

Sam needs both hands, but he can hold it himself. Her intends to drink slowly, but it's impossible once the liquid hits his tongue—it's just so delicious, so amazing to have his thirst quenched with only a little water and sugar. He'd down the whole bottle, but Dean stops him as Cas hadn't—"Whoa there," putting his hand over the top. "Give your stomach a chance. You keep that down and we can try some soup."

Sam's stomach rumbles in plaintive hope, and Dean flashes that grin again, tempts, "Maybe even applesauce. Real man's food."

"You're a dick," Sam tells him, and takes another sip from the bottle, keeping it from becoming a gulp with effort. It's incredible; nothing real could taste this good.

He looks past Dean to squint at the shelves, idly curious, but it's a little too far for him to read the titles. Dean follows his line of sight, flaps a hand at the bookshelves. "You'll have to go through them, put them back in order—I tried to straighten things out, after the mess You-Know-Who made, but I couldn't figure out what the hell passes for organization in your piles."

"'You-Know-Who'?" Sam repeats, almost laughing in spite of himself. "So now I'm having you read Harry Potter?"

"You're having me what now? I meant, you know." Dean's jaw tightens. "Lucifer. When he locked himself in here, before..."

"I remember," Sam says.

"Figured you would," Dean says. "And after that...you remember that, too?"

"All of it," Sam says. "Amara and Chuck. The spirit bomb. You went...and the sun came back. And Cas and I came back here, to the bunker, and there was...she was waiting for us. Toni Bevell, from the British Men of Letters."

Dean is sitting still, arms crossed over his chest. "There was blood on the floor."

"She shot me," Sam says. "Not life-threatening—they healed me with magic. That was before they..."

His breathing is getting faster, shallower. "Hey," Dean says, leaning forward again. "You don't have to talk about it—not now. We should go over the details sometime, so we know what we're up against. But that can wait—the important thing is, you're safe here. We reinforced the bunker's wards, made sure they're back up and then some. And I put on a padlock. Once you're back on your feet, you can figure out a way to change the lock for real—I didn't want to mess with that magic. But for now no one's getting in without bolt cutters, key or no key."

"That's good," Sam says, wondering if it's true. Maybe Cas told him that before—would Cas have thought of a padlock?

"Sam?" Dean says, and Sam refocuses on him. Dean is frowning down at his knees, not meeting Sam's eyes. "There's something you don't know yet. Something major. It was Amara-when that all went down, what she did. See, she... I should've told you, but I made a call, because I didn't want to mess you up even more, when you were already having a hard time keeping track of things. And also I thought it might be what you wanted, because you were so messed up—but maybe it wouldn't be; maybe it made it worse, to keep it from you, and I'm sorry about that—"

He's not ready—he should be, but—"It's okay," Sam says, "it's okay, Dean, you don't—you don't have to tell me yet."

Dean looks strangely sad, but maybe slightly relieved, and guilty about that relief; but he just says, "All right—don't want to overload you, but once you...well, anyway." He straightens his shoulders, sets the disquiet aside and asks, "How you feeling?"

Sam shrugs, rather than lie either way.

Dean nods at the plastic bottle in his hands. "Your stomach still settled?"

Sam considers. "Guess so?"

"Great, then we can try that soup. I'll go—"

Dean stands up from the chair, and Sam has dropped the bottle and reached out before he can think about it. Closing his hand around Dean's arm, warm and solid under the flannel—not shifting like the hallucinations, but constant. Almost like—

Sam's mouth is open but he's not sure what to say. Dean's brow folds down and then smooths out. "Hey," he says, "okay, how about I text Cas, get some angelic room service in here," and he takes out his phone, awkwardly with his left hand, not pulling his arm from Sam's grasp.

Sam forces his fingers to open, drags his hand back into his lap. "This is ridiculous," he mutters.

It's only to himself, but Dean's brow lowers again. "What is? Because after what you've gone through...give yourself a couple days of being ridiculous, okay, man? I'm not gonna tell anyone—you just keep getting better, and we'll call this off the record."

"Dreams usually are," Sam points out.

Dean goes still. "You..." he starts. Stops and shuts his mouth, jaw working, then tries again. "You're not dreaming, Sammy. You know that, right? You're awake now."

"Either I'm asleep and dreaming," Sam says, "or I'm awake and seeing things. But I shouldn't be anymore, if the blood's really out of my system."

Dean looks around the room, slowly, the corner-of-the-eye glances of checking for a hidden spirit. "What are you seeing?"

Sam sighs, shakes his head, and Dean's eyes snap back to him. "Me?" Dean says. "You still think—Sam, it's me. I'm alive, I'm here, for real. There's got to be a way to prove it—"

"Not really," Sam says. "Not when I could just be imagining the proof, too."

Dean's gaze drops away from Sam's steady one. "Would you actually try to prove it? If you could?"

Sam doesn't bother answering. Dean glowers down at the bedspread like its charcoal gray is personally offensive. But he takes the effort to pitch his voice quieter, not accusing, to ask, "It wasn't so bad before, was it?"

Sam frowns. "What wasn't?"

"Me," Dean says obscurely. "This isn't...I've died on you a few times now. But it wasn't your fault, Sam. Not at all. And last time—when I was really gone, not running around with black eyes, but when I got tossed into Purgatory—it wasn't so bad, was it? For that year, you had a dog, you met a girl—you had, you know. What you'd always wanted. A regular life."

"It was the worst year of my life," Sam says, like he had never actually been able to say to Dean.

Dean's head comes up again, and it's hard to meet those green eyes, however imaginary. Sam looks up at the fan instead, says, "At Stanford—it got lonely sometimes. But I always kept your number programmed into my phone. So that if I really wanted to, I could call. And maybe you wouldn't have picked up, but I didn't know...if I never actually called, then I could tell myself that maybe, if I really had to talk to you, I could."

Sam's right hand curls around his left, thumb digging into the scar. It doesn't really hurt anymore, not that it would matter anyway. "After the Leviathans...you were gone, and I thought—if I looked for you, if I found out for sure what happened to you, then that would be it. But if I didn't, then maybe...it was like having your number in my phone. I could pretend that even if you were gone, I might see you again, eventually."

Dean is still for a long moment. "And that helped?"

"Sometimes," Sam says. "Not a lot. But sometimes, it was enough to get me through one more day."

Dean is so silent that Sam fears he might have vanished, that he might be waking up. Doesn't lift his head to check.

But then Dean says, ghost-soft next to him, "I'd have picked up. When you were at Stanford—I always made sure I had your number in my phone. Soon as I saw it was you, I'd have picked up, on the first ring."

Sam smiles a little. "Yeah," he says, "I know." He wishes he'd tried calling, way back then. Even if they'd argued, even it wouldn't have changed anything else, he'd have a few more conversations with Dean to remember.

The quiet now is not like he's alone; it's the pause of Dean thinking, trying to work out what to say. It's a silence Sam knows from a hundred arguments, from a thousand car-rides. When Dean was angry he could wield words like a knife, cutting quick and sharp and deep; but when it was really important he took more care, drawing his own feelings instead of blood.

So Sam listens closely, when Dean at last says, back bowed, head down, "When you were gone, down in the Cage, and I was stuck up here—after a few weeks, Lisa started nudging me to get a job. To be productive, making something of myself—she suggested that I could become an EMT. Or a fireman—doing something that I'd be helping people, even if I wasn't hunting.

"And I told her I couldn't risk it, not with the background checks those kinds of jobs get, I didn't have any ID that could stand up to that. Joining a construction crew, as long as I had the tools and could do the work, that was all I needed.

"But the IDs weren't really why; I could've figured something out. But I didn't...I couldn't. Doing something like that, something that mattered, alone—or worse, with a partner, someone I'd have to trust, who I'd have to...I couldn't do it. Not with someone I couldn't rely on, someone I wouldn't want to be with. Not like I want to be here."

Dean's voice trails off. Sam turns his head to look at his brother, stares at those bowed shoulders. "I never heard that—Dean never told me that."

Dean shrugs. "We never talked much about that year—you were off being a soulless dick, not really interested; and by the time we got you back, it was over and done with, so..."

"That's not..." Sam shakes his head. "If you never told me that—how could I be dreaming it now?"

Dean draws a deep, deliberate breath. "Maybe you've just got a good imagination. Or maybe, you're not..."

"There's no way to prove it anyway, not when Lisa wouldn't remember..." Sam murmurs, to himself, though Dean winces.

A knock at the door interrupts his train of thought. Dean jumps up to answer it, and Sam tilts his head, trying to get a better angle to see what's beyond—would he be dreaming the bunker's corridors? Or just mist and void, these walls the limits of his assumed reality?

But Cas blocks Sam's view, entering holding a steaming thermos. He smiles at Sam, almost as widely as Dean had. "Sam," the angel says. "It's good to see you fully awake."

"Yeah," Dean says, "about that..." But he just shakes his head at Cas's questioning look, waves him over to the bed.

Cas gives Sam the thermos—it's heavier than the plastic Gatorade bottle, but he manages it. The aroma of the chicken broth is enough to make his mouth water, and he shuts his eyes at the taste, salty and savory. It's warm but not hot enough to burn his mouth or unsettle his stomach, and he's missed this, the complexity of flavors—he's missed wanting that complexity, wanting anything more than power on his tongue.

While he's slurping down the soup, Dean is muttering to Cas. They're turned away from the bed, so that Sam can't quite make out what his brother is saying. Though by the set of his shoulders, he's not happy.

There's more Sam would like to say to him—but there's always going to be more. And he's exhausted, the thermos slipping from his fingers before he's half finished. Cas hastily grabs it before he can spill soup on the sheets, and Dean's hand on his shoulder gently bears down, pushing Sam back onto the bed.

Dean's not smiling anymore, but he doesn't look angry, either. "Take five, Sammy," he says. "See how things look when you wake up."

"Not sure I'm ready," Sam admits, letting his head sink into the pillow.

"You are," Dean says. "You're way stronger than you think. Than anyone would believe. Only reason you've made it this far."

"Dean," Sam says. "You're strong, too. So hold on—wherever you are. I'm going to find you this time."

His eyelids have dropped shut, so he can't see Dean's face. But his brother's reply comes soft and sure. "I know you will, Sam."

* * *

 **Chapter 14**

The next time Sam wakes up, he's alone. He's alone in his bedroom, and the pressure on his bladder is enough that he's out of bed and almost to the door before anything registers.

He pauses, hand on the handle—but physical stress trumps the psychological. The door opens, no lock, and beyond it is the bunker's art-deco hallway. The lights are low; he doesn't bother to turn them up, walking barefoot down the familiar corridor.

At the sink to wash his hands, he stares at himself in the mirror. Wan and haggard, patchily bearded, hair hanging lank and flat—he looks like the stranded survivor of a shipwreck. Or, he supposes, a barely recovered addict.

He turns the shower to its hottest, strips off his stained t-shirt and sweats and gets under the steaming water. Works up a lather of shampoo scrubbing too-long nails against his scalp. Sometimes the simplest pleasures are the most profound.

It's quiet, but for the white noise of the water against the tile. When he finally turns it off, there's only the faint hum of the bunker's air circulators. No voices. No one with him.

By the time he finishes running the electric shaver over his chin, his legs are getting shaky under him. He leans on the door when he exits, puts his shoulder against the wall and starts back to his room.

He only makes it a couple steps when he hears his name. Jerks up before he recognizes Cas's voice, and then has to smack a hand to the wall to steady his spinning head.

The angel hurries to Sam's side, ducking his shoulders under Sam's arm to prop him up. "I didn't expect you to wake until morning," he tells Sam.

"Sorry," Sam says.

"No, this is good, that you're feeling this well already."

"Yeah, well." Sam hesitates, but if Cas isn't actually a doctor, he's involved, anyway. "It was black, in the toilet, before I flushed."

"That isn't normal for urine, is it?"

"No." Sam shakes his head. "But I've seen it before...the last time, after Famine. I think it's...whatever residue it leaves needs to get out." It burns, but he'd rather that than vomit.

"So that's a good sign." Cas sounds hopeful, an unnatural burr in his dour growl.

Sam almost smiles, hearing it. "Yeah, probably."

Though his legs are wobbly, his head is mostly clear. He thinks about asking to go to the library. Just to see that it's still there. Has Cas cleaned up the bloodstains from when he was shot?

But he's only in a towel. And the shortest path to the library from here passes the kitchen, and Sam's not ready for that. The bunker's too big anyway. But some rooms will be emptier than others.

Back in his bedroom, he puts on the first t-shirt and boxers he grabs from his drawers, then sits in the chair by the desk. Eventually he's got to do something besides sleep; might as well start now.

"You should probably eat," Cas says. "What would you like? I could get you soup. Or applesauce?"

 _Real man's food_. "Soup would be great," Sam makes himself say.

Cas nods and turns toward the door. "Cas," Sam says.

The angel turns back. "Yes?"

Sam takes a breath. "How long has it been? Since..."

"Since you were abducted?" Cas doesn't need to check a watch. "Seven weeks, six days, and four and a half hours. Since we found you? Eleven days and two hours."

Almost two months, and over a week. Sam doesn't know if it feels like one-tenth or ten times that.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Cas says. "It shouldn't have taken so long."

The rescue, or the recovery? Either? Sam shakes his head. "That's—it's fine, Cas. Remind me to say it again when I'm more together, but thank you."

Cas examines him, his focused frown even more intense than usual, like a biologist confronted with a specimen long assumed extinct. "You're welcome," he says finally. "Any time."

Once Cas has left for the kitchen, Sam examines the shelves. The books are stacked up, not strewn about. Maybe Cas straightened them up.

The stacks have an order, though it takes Sam a little while to piece it together. Within the piles they're arranged by title, not author, and the subject categorization is haphazard at best. Werewolves and shifters together makes some sense, and vampires and wendigos have the cannibalism in common. But putting ghosts with curses is a stretch. And the stack of texts that includes angels, fairy circles, and a biography of St. Nicholas must be the sorter's miscellaneous discards.

Cas comes back with the soup in a bowl—not chicken but a thick red tomato base, and Sam feels a tilting vertigo of hope when he pushes the spoon through it and turns up white grains of rice.

But the first bite is—it's fine, it's tasty. Not from a can, and it fills his stomach. But it's made with milk instead of half and half, he's pretty sure, and the spices are off.

Not quite like what he's used to getting, when he's ill.

Sam manages to finish most of the bowl, and his hand is barely even trembling when he puts down the spoon. Progress. At this rate he'll be able to pick up a gun in half a year and maybe pull the trigger the year after that.

"No, you're recovering quite quickly," Cas denies that self-pity. "Provided you continue to eat and rest—there's no hurry. The other Men of Letters are still in the United Kingdom. And Lucifer is at the bottom of the ocean."

"—Where?" Sam says.

"Rowena banished him," Cas says. "We only just learned it from Crowley. Lucifer apparently found a temporary vessel in a musician named Vincent Vincente—"

"He's _what_?"

Cas doesn't have many more details, but that's enough. Vince Vincente, seriously. Either Sam's even more screwed up off the blood than on it, or this is reality after all. It admittedly sounds like the kind of slapdash narrative Chuck would've scribbled.

Sam does wonder who Cas's 'we' is. Another angel? Or did he recruit some hunters—as well as Crowley, apparently, which is why Sam has no memory of the trip back to the States. How Cas convinced the demon to teleport him back, Sam can't guess. He hopes Cas doesn't owe Hell's ex-king too much.

He'll figure out that deal when necessary. There's way more Sam has to do now. But it's hard to plan or research when he can barely lift a book, when his vision keeps pulling out of focus like a loose camera lens.

"Sam," Cas says—differently than he's said it before, and when Sam looks at him, the angel's face is set, resolute.

Before Cas can go on, Sam yawns, jaw-cracking wide. Says, "Excuse me, Cas—guess I still need more rest." He stumbles when he goes to stand, but the angel is there with a hand under his elbow, helping him back to the bed. A gentle hand on his forehead, spreading warmth to settle the ache of fatigue.

Sam drifts on it, but he's not fully asleep when Cas clicks off the light. He turns his head to squint at the angel's shadowy shape. "Cas?"

Cas stands there, framed in the doorway. "Yes, Sam?"

"What time is it?"

"Almost two AM," Cas says. "I believe the term is, 'past your bedtime.'"

Sam swallows something that should be a chuckle but isn't. "Thanks."

He waits for Cas to close the door, walk away; but Cas stays in place, a still, dark silhouette, until Sam closes his eyes. And even then, he doesn't hear the door shut.

He's not alone. So he shouldn't feel so lonely.

* * *

His laptop is sitting on his bureau, the next time Sam wakes up. There's a phone next to it—not the one he had when Toni got him, a new burner. It's fully charged, and so is the computer.

Cas shows up a little after Sam logs on. Or, actually, almost an hour—fifty-six minutes, by the laptop's clock, when there's a knock on the door.

Cas has a plate with a couple pieces of toast and a dish of applesauce. And a glass of OJ—not from a carton, and Sam pauses halfway through gulping it down, looks at Cas. "You squeezed me orange juice?" something in his chest compressing tight enough to hurt. That Cas is being so careful with him, though Cas is grieving, too—and probably alone, for most of it. He wouldn't have been hallucinating. And angels don't even sleep to dream.

But Cas shakes his head. "I didn't make the juice," he says, studying Sam's face so intently. Like he's expecting Sam to make sense of this without any clues.

"So who else is here?" Sam asks. "Jody?"

Cas shakes his head again. "Though she's been told that you're back."

That's something, at least. Sam finds himself wishing, two months too late, that they had called her. Had called Donna, if there had been time.

He's forming a list in the back of his mind. Hunters, others. Some of the people they saved, who found out more than they wanted. Who should know—who might come, if they can. Maybe it's too late for a proper funeral, not when there's no body anyway. But a memorial.

Sam checks the time on his phone. Nine AM. "I want to see it," he says.

Cas cocks his head, inquiring. "The sun," Sam explains. "I haven't seen it. Not since...not since the Brits grabbed me."

The library is all in order, the bloodstains scrubbed away. Cas accompanies Sam up the bunker's main stairs, one step behind but not hurrying him. Sam is out of breath by the time he reaches the metal entry door, but he only needs the railing to haul himself up the last couple steps.

Cas has the key to the padlock protecting the door, opens it and then steps aside to let Sam through. After the bunker's conditioned air, the summer warmth is like stepping into a bath. Sam's shoulders relax under it, even before he's walked far enough to leave the entrance's shadow.

Then he's standing on the dirt drive, yellow grass and gravel crackling under his boots, and sunlight against his bare arms, his cheeks. He tilts his face up toward the sky, squinting until he's tearing up, then shuts his eyes and lets the sun beat blood-red against his closed eyelids.

Nothing in his dreams, nothing of the past weeks, felt like this. Not even the demon blood is a match for the buoyant pressure of this light, the energy upon which all life depends.

In his reading online he found a dozen astronomical articles about the recent unique solar phenomenon. There will be hundreds published in the years to come. Some might have more precise data, but none of them will be accurate. None of them will get it right, why the sun almost went out. And who brought it back.

It should be worth it. It's not; but it should be.

Gary Busey lives in the Los Angeles area. Sam looked that up, too. Google hadn't had more details, but he can get them.

It's the first step, is the thing. Not the last. Funerals are for the dead, not the gone. For the remembered.

When he turns back, Cas is waiting, chin up and spine straight, a soldier ready for battle. When Sam starts back for the bunker, Cas falls into stride next to him, one hand hovering at Sam's elbow, though his legs are holding firm for now.

"Sam," the angel says, in his grating, indistinct human voice. Sam wonders if Cas will ever sound entirely whole to him again, or if he'll always be listening for more. "Do you know where you are—do you know that you are? That you're here, in Lebanon, and recovering?"

"Yeah, enough," Sam says.

Cas frowns. "And you're not seeing things now?"

Sam scans the area—grass, road, the bunker's industrial camouflage. "Only what could really be here."

"But you could be imagining it," Cas says.

"I could be," Sam agrees.

"Do you think you are?"

Sam looks down at his feet, at the dew from the weeds soaking dark patches into his shoes' leather. "No," he says. "This is different. It feels different. And you—you're real." That, he's sure of; he heard Cas, too clearly to doubt him. "Besides, if I were imagining this, then I'd still be seeing..." But he stops. It's not true anyway; there's no more reason for his subconscious to give him what he wants than for reality to. As if he'd deserve it either way.

"Sam, before, when the demon blood was still in you," Cas says. "You realized you were in the bunker, didn't you? And that I was with you, sometimes?"

"Yes," Sam confirms. "Sometimes."

"Do you remember what you were told? About what happened—what really happened, before you were kidnapped. With Amara, and God. And Dean."

There's nothing special in how Cas says it. Like it's just a name, like it doesn't hurt to speak it aloud.

Maybe that's what makes Sam's shoulders square, braced and filled like a sail catching the wind. For all it feels like there's no air left in his lungs. "I had a dream," Sam says. "When you were healing me—I dreamed about Amara. That she was still here—or, not here. But talking to me, in my dream. But that shouldn't be possible, not if that bomb went off."

"No, it wouldn't be possible, if it had."

Sam looks behind them, past the line of the bunker's shade to the bright green of the sunlit grass. "But the sun came back."

"It did," Cas agrees.

And that should have only been possible if Amara was destroyed, the balance restored. The Darkness gone along with God, and with them...

He'd dreamed about Chuck, Sam recalls suddenly. Chuck who took his father's face. When had he dreamed that? When the Men of Letters were still interrogating him? After they'd forced the blood down his throat? He can't remember.

"Let's go back inside," Cas says. "And see what you see. And I'll tell you if it's real. If you can believe me."

Sam looks down at his hand, long fingers and bitten blunt nails. Watches as he grasps the handle of the bunker door. He can feel the metal, warming under his skin, smooth but for the little patch of rust growing invisible under the knob. It's solid, convincing. He swallows. "I don't know if I can."

"But you want to," Cas says.

"There's a lot that I want," Sam says. If he runs his tongue against the edges of his teeth he can almost taste it, even now, thick and bittersweet, quenching like no water or juice or liquor ever could.

If he takes five steps back, he could feel the sun against his skin again.

If he opens this door...

It's easy to believe the worst. This is so much harder.

But then, it's never been about that, has it? All those years praying to God—to Chuck. Dean never got it. It was never really about whether Sam believed in God. How could it matter what he believed, when all of it had been around for eons before he existed, when his role in the story had been assigned long before his birth?

What mattered was who believed in him. As weak as he is, as flawed, as wanting.

And maybe Chuck does, or maybe Chuck doesn't, or maybe Chuck doesn't believe in anything anymore. But he's not the one who matters.

Sam's tried other ways before. That didn't work and wouldn't. This time he's not going to waste a year pretending emptiness is happiness. Or try to fill it with power and vengeance.

They saved the world, but Sam lost his brother. So he has to find him again. It's as simple as that. In any version of reality, dreaming or awake.

Sam twists the knob, the metal latch clinking under his fingers. Swings open the door and walks inside.

 _the end_

* * *

 _Thank you again, everyone who stuck through this story to the end - all your comments and favorites are how I got it here at all; it means more to me than I can say, that you've taken the time to read it!_


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